





^ 






fyc- ^ 



hi.^ 



^.rf^ 



si^ 




'-r^fm^^^m&^w^: -i 






^W^- -MtXM^ ^^^ 'i^^i Ai^"% ^w^' 






:^: m 

















>^/ 



% 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



T^ 



tr 



^ .lywp 



.sf' 



' v£/' ; UNI' 



Sliclf_--fc(..5 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 








'■f^i^i' 



^¥6' 



^ 









^ ^ 



m. ^^ a. U U^^^^^ ^ 






'w^^3^' 



^4-* . ^Sjo(- Mr.-:. ^ 
^"^ oV^,^ tr\^^^ 



-«*■ 







#^ 






'' .V 

















4"'^'. ^Jik^ff^ 



>/A 





i^i- 



^ 















^^ 




^M^ 







^i>^m^ A^^ji^M^ ^^m)^^'^ m%M}^ ^k' 
















:%■ 










4il' 



4\f f 










1 











iHp 





^t 





__ ._r. -"^ • -o^ , lip. 







^#' 






%/^^ 
r ^)^ 



#"5,^6^^IM^, #"^u(i<^*Se #-a,u^ #- 




V-:,c. 



V-^"- 



HORyE SABBATIC^. 

PART I. 



HOR/E SABBATIC/E; 



OR, 



An Attempt to Correct Certain 



SUPERSTITIOUS AND VULGAR ERRORS 



RESPECTING 



the SABBATH 



By GODFREY HIGGINS, ESQ. 

F. P. A., F. R. ASIAT. SOC, F. R. AST. S. 

AUTHOR OF CELTIC DRDIDS; APOLOGY FOR aiOHAMED, THE ILLUSTRIOUS; ANACALYPSIS, 
OR AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGES, NATIONS AND RELIGIONS. 



's^yG 0.1 893 J 

^WASW.^>|/ f 

New York: ^ t^^J 



PETER ECKLER, PUBLISHER 
35 Fulton Street. 







Copyrighted, 1893, by Peter Eckler. 



1 






PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 



IN Horcs Sabbaticcs the Christian Sabbath, or the Sun- 
-^ day, is shown, in the words of our learned author, 
''to be a hiinian^ not a <2'2V2;^^ institution, — a festival, not 
aday of humiliation, — to be kept by all consistent Chris- 
tians with joy and gladness, like Christinas Day and Easter 
Sunday, and not like Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. " 

Strictly speaking, all institutions now observed by 
human beings may claim a human origin, but many 
pious and sincere people believe differently, and claim 
in addition to human laws, divine authority for the 
religious observance of Sunday. But their notions in 
regard to this subject are confused and ill-defined, and 
will not bear the test of examination. 

They believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, 
that Jesus Christ was the only-begotten Son of God, 
and also God himself, but when the Son of Mary defends 
his disciples for violating Jewish Sabbath laws by 
plucking corn on the Sabbath day, ( as recorded in Mark 
ii, 23-28,) and tells the Pharisees that " The Sabbath was 
made for man and not man for the Sabbath," and that 
*'the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath," our 
modern Sabbatarians, although they assert that "Jesus 
spoke as one having authority," yet seem to have no 



vi publisher's preface. 

sympathy with his liberal views, and, by striving to 
enforce the puritanical Sunday laws of modern bigotry, 
they, in effect, like the ancient Pharisees, oppose the 
teachings of their "Saviour," and repudiate the au- 
thority of the God they pretend to worship. 

Because the Jews were commanded in the Bible to "Re- 
member [Saturday] the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," 
certain pharisaical sectarians decided to remember the^'^^;^ 
day, the venerable day of the Sun, and keep it holy in 
like manner, without any biblical command for so doing. 

The Bible student will seek in vain throughout its 
pages for any reference to Sunday observance, as there is 
no authority whatever in either the Old or New Testa- 
ment for keeping holy the day which the idolatrous 
Pagans formerly dedicated to the Sun. Christ and his 
Disciples never proposed so radical an innovation. St. 
Paul and the Evangelists never advocated such a change. 
The Apostles were Jews by birth, education, and faith. 
They were strict observers of Jewish laws and customs, 
and it was while celebrating the Jewish feast of the Pass- 
over at Jerusalem, that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, 
and arrested-, tried, convicted, and crucified by Pilate. 

It is recorded of a certain pious Puritan of " Merrie 
Old England," that he 

" Hung a cat on Monday, for killing of a mouse on Sunday ; " 

and it is certain that the Puritans of New England have, 
by their pious zeal and odious Blue Laws, done all 
within their power to make life a burden to the sojourner 
within their gates on the day which the ancient Pagans 



pubusher's preface. vii 

called Siuiday^ and which was observed by the Atheni- 
ans as sacred to Apollo, the Sun-god, — "the god of 
life, and poesy, and light." 

The first Christian Emperor, the wicked Constantine, 
who imagined that his stalwart form, impressive features, 
august and commanding presence, gave him a resemblance 
to the Grecian Helios or Roman Apollo, — the fabled 
god of the Sun, — was a strong advocate for the change 
from the Jewish sacred Saturday to the equally sacred 
Pagan Sunday^ or the day named for and dedicated to 
the solar luminary. And when this latter day is observed 
as a day of rest, recreation, or devotion, according to the 
separate inclination of each and every individual, no 
reasonable objection can be made to the change. 

Sunday observance is at best but a human institution, 
without any claim to occult authority, and while it is not 
of special importance to wealthy people, who have the 
365 days of the year at their disposal, it is of great ben- 
efit and advantage to the industrial classes. 

The religious orders, and all the followers of ancient 
traditions, should be allowed the privilege of displaying 
their faith in Sunday worship as ostentatiously as they 
may desire, and reasonable people should not be molested 
for observing Sunday in the manner which proves most 
conducive to their welfare and happiness. 

"One man," says St. Paul, "esteemeth one day above 
another : another esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind." — Rom. xiv^ 5. 

Peter Eckler. 



PREFACE. 



IN the following Treatise some persons perhaps may 
think, that too much trouble is taken to refute trifling 
objections : but the Author's object has been if possible 
to prevent reply. And he has not attempted to refute 
any objection, which has not at one time or other, been 
advanced by persons with whom he has argued on the 
subject. 

He flatters himself that not one word will be found in 
the whole, which can give just offence to the orthodox 
or reasoning Christian, or even to the sincere follower of 
Wesley; though no doubt offence enough will be given 
to members of societies which suppress vice in rags, and 
cherish it in purple and fine raiment, — itinerant attend- 
ants at missionary meetings — such as practice standing 
in the synagogues^ andin the corners of the streets sound- 
ing their trumpet^ and making long prayers. (Matt. vi. 
2-5. xxiii. 14, 15.) Persons well described in the fol- 
lowing epigram, written by a much esteemed friend of 
the Author. 

How well the character agrees 
'Twixt new and ancient pharisees ; 
A surly, proud, vindictive race, 
Who spat upon our Saviour's face ; 
Because he told them it was wrong 
Either to pray too loud, or long. 

20 Keppel Street^ Russell Square. 



HOR^ SABBATICyE. 



OF the various rites which have been established by 
the founders of the different religions of the world, 
perhaps there is no one which is so intimately connected 
with the temporal happiness and comfort of mankind, 
as that of the observance of one day in every seven as a 
day of rest. The appropriation of certain days, at short 
periods of time, to the purposes of devotion, of recreation, 
and of relaxation from worldly cares, seems to be an 
institution peculiarly adapted to the improvement of the 
mind, and to the advancement of civilization. And yet 
the example of the Turks, — the strictest of all the ob- 
servers of a Sabbath in modern times, — proves that, 
excellent as the institution is, human perverseness may 
prevail, to render it useless, to defeat the ends for which 
it probably was originally intended, and to destroy the 
good effects which it was so well calculated to produce. 

2. The state of ignorance and barbarism, into which 
the inhabitants of the countries have fallen, which were 
formerly possessed by the elegant and enlightened 
caliphs, makes it evident that this institution is not nec- 
essarily accompanied with improvement and civilization ; 

(7) 



8 HOR^E SABBATIC^. 

and after its first institution amongst Christians, it was 
equally unavailable, to prevent the well-known igno- 
rance and barbarism of the middle ages ; but in each 
case this effect has arisen by the abuse of it, or in oppo- 
sition to it, not by its means. Its tendency was evidently 
to produce a contrary effect ; and it can only be regretted 
that its power was not greater and more efficacious. 

3. But it is not fair to reason against the use, from the 
abuse of a thing ; and there is nothing in this world 
which may not be converted to an evil purpose, and the 
good effects of which may not be destroyed by artful and 
designing men. A proof of this may be found in the 
way in which attempts are now making in this coun- 
try, to convert the institution of which I am treating 
to purposes pernicious in the highest degree to society — 
to make use of it to create or encourage a morose and 
gloomy superstition, the effect of which will be to de- 
base, not to exalt or improve the human mind. 

4. The Puritans, Evangelical Christians as they call 
themselves, the modern Pharisees in reality, a sect an- 
swering exactly to the Pharisees of old, finding that the 
restoration of the Jewish Sabbath, which was peculiarly 
ordained in the Old Testament for the use of the Jews, 
is well calculated to serve their purpose, and being pre- 
cluded by various circumstances of their situation from 
having recourse to the expedients of the Catholic priests, 
to gain possession of the minds of their votaries, have 
exerted all their power by its means to attain this object. 
These are the reasons why we hear more of the heinous 
crime of Sabbath-breaking, than of all other vices to- 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 9 

gether. And hence every nerve has been strained to the 
utmost, to extract from passages both in the Old and 
New Testament, meanings favorable to this design, 
which the words will not justify. * But the fair unsophis- 
ticated doctrines on this subject, a§ taught in these 
works, are what it is intended here to enquire into and 
discuss. 

5. In the whole of the New Testament, a single pas- 
sage cannot be discovered clearly directing the observance 
of a Sabbath. If this institution be of the importance 
which some persons attach to it in a religious point of 
view, it seems very extraordinary that not one of the 
Evangelists should have stated any thing clearly upon 
the subject : — very strange that we do not find the mode 
described in which it was kept by the first disciples, or 
the apostles, in plain, clear, and unequivocal language. 

6. It seems reasonable to expect, that if the earliest 
Christians, the apostles or disciples, had considered that 
the observance of the Sunday was actually an exchange 
of the Sabbath from the Saturday, by divine appoint- 
ment, we should find in the Acts of the Apostles all our 
doubts removed ; and removed, not by implication or 
forced construction, but by a clear and unequivocal 
statement. 

7. By the early Christians at first the Jewish Sabbath 
was strictly kept, but after some time it seems to have 
been considered by their immediate followers, along with 

*No doubt, amongst the Pharisees of old, as amongst our Evangel- 
ical Christians, there were many good, well disposed persons, the 
dupes of the knaves. 



lO HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

all other Jewish ceremonies, to have been abolished ; but 
they appear very wisely to have thought, that it would 
be useful and proper to select one day in the week, 
which, without neglecting the ordinary duties of life 
arising out of th^ir respective situations, should be ap- 
propriated to the observance of religious duties, of rest 
and recreation. This does not seem to have been the 
act of any regular deliberative meeting, but to have 
taken place by degrees, and to have been considered 
merely as a measure of discipline, liable at any time to 
be varied or omitted, as the heads of the religion might 
think was expedient. 

8. From a variety of passages in the Gospels, Jesus 
appears in his actions to have made no distinction 
betwixt the Sabbath and any other day ; doing the 
same things on the Sabbath that he did on any other 
day. In reply to this it is said, that what he did on 
the Sabbath was good and useful — such as healing the 
sick : this is true ; but he did nothing on any other 
day which was not good and useful ; and therefore 
nothing in favor of the Sabbath can be inferred from 
this. Every thing which is not bad is good ; and it is 
wrong to do any thing on any day which is not good. 
One of the most important of all the Jewish rites, and 
one of the most strictly enforced by the Pharisees, was 
the observance of the Sabbath ; and it appears evident, 
that Jesus performed various actions for the express 
purpose of making manifest his disapprobation of the 
strict observance of this rite, or indeed of its observance 
at all. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. II 

9. After he had healed the sick man at the pool of 
Bethesda, he ordered him to remove his bed on the Sab- 
bath-day ; and it appears from John v. 10, 11, 12, that 
a very correct and marked distinction was made by the 
Jews, betwixt healing the man and carrying away the 
bed : they say, 

It is the Sabbath ; it is not lawful for thee to take up thy 
couch. 

Afterward, when the Jews charged Jesus with having 
broken the Sabbath in this instance, his reply was very 
extraordinary : v. 17. 

My Father worketh until now, and I work. 

10. If the doctrine of Jesus be deduced by implication 
from his conduct, from this very instance the Sabbath 
must be held to be abolished. He expressly says to the 
observation on the subject of the couch, "/ work.'''' 
The answer of Jesus clearly applies to the moving the 
bed as well as healing the man ; because the expression 
is, "these things," in the plural number; and there 
were but two acts which could be referred to. 

11. But another observation offers itself on this sub- 
ject : here is the fairest opportunity afforded to Jesus to 
support the Sabbath, if he had thought proper. If he 
had thoughjt it right that the Sabbath should have been 
continued, he would have said to the sick man. Arise, 
and walk, and remove thy bed when the Sabbath is over. 
He would then have taught in the clearest and shortest 



12 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

terms possible, the propriety of doing good works of 
necessity, and the impropriety of doing such as were not 
works of necessity on the Sabbath. In every one of the 
following texts, an opportunity is afforded to Jesus, so 
favorable for the inculcation of the observance of the 
Sabbath, that it is very difficult to account for his neg- 
lect of it, if it were his intention that it should be con- 
tinued. 

Luke xiv, 4, 5. xiii. 14. vi. 6-10. Matt. xii. 2. Mark, ii. 27. 
John vii. 22. ix. 16. 

12. Jesus constantly evades the attacks of the Jews on 
the ground of necessity ; but in no instance does he drop 
a word expressive of disapprobation, of domg eve^i un- 
necessary works on the Sabbath. This is named, though 
it is not necessary to the argument ; because if he had 
expressed himself against doing unnecessary works on 
the Jewish Sabbath, no consequence could be drawn 
from this circumstance respecting the Christian observ- 
ance of Sunday. 

13. In Luke xviii. Jesus has an opportunity of a 
different kind from the above, of supporting the Sab- 
bath : but he avoids it. 

18. A certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what 
shall I do to inherit eternal life ? 

19. And Jesus said unto him. Why callest theu me good? 
none is good, save one, that is God. 

20. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit 
adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal. Do not bear false witness, 
Honor thy father and thy mother. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 1 3 

21. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. 

22. Now, when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, 
Yet lackest thou one thing ; sell all that thou hast, and give 
to the poor, &c. 

14. Here Jesus not only avoids directing the observance 
of the Sabbath ; but in actually specifying the command- 
ments by name which are necessary to insure salvation, 
and omitting the Sabbath, if he do not actually abolish 
it the neglect of the opportunity of inculcating it, raises 
by implication a strong presumption against it. But, 
indeed, in not adding the observance of the Sabbath to 
the one thing more which was lacking, he actually 
abolishes it, if the common signification of words is to 
be received. 

15. The ordering the bed to be removed was one 
breach of the Sabbath, and the following passage ex- 
hibits a second example of a premeditated breach of it 
by Jesus. 

16. At the first verse of the sixth chapter of Luke it 
is written, 

And it came to pass, on the first Sabbath after the second 
day of unleavened bread, that he went through the corn-fields ; 
and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing 
them with their hands. 

17. In this passage it appears, that the disciples of 
Jesus, with his approbation, reaped the corn on a Sab- 
bath-day. It also appears that he was travelling on that 
day. The Pharisees, as usual, reprimanded him for 
breaking the Sabbath, which he justified, saying, ''The 
Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath," ver. 5. 



14 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

1 8. It cannot be supposed that provisions were not to 
be had in Judea. It is represented to have been almost 
incredibly rich and populous : and if Jesus had not 
thought the reaping the corn on the Sabbath justifiable, 
he would have provided against the necessity of doing 
it, if any necessity there was. He might also have made 
use of this occasion to inculcate the doctrine, that though 
acts of necessity were permitted, all others were expressly 
forbidden on the Sabbath-day. It is very evident that 
he was travelling. The road probably as at this day 
passed through the open corn-fields. 

And it came to pass that he went through the corn-fields on 
the Sabbath ; and his disciples began as they went to pluck 
the ears of corn; and the Pharisees said unto him, See, why 
do they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful?* 

19. The conduct of his disciples he defends, upon the 
example of David eating the shew-bread, which it was 
lawful only for the priests to eat ; and adds, that the 
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. But 
not a word is said which can be construed in favor of 
keeping the Sabbath. 

20. It has been observed that only the burthensome 
parts of the Jewish law were abolished, but that the 
observance of the Sabbath is not a burthen. Where is 
the authority for this? Is it not a burthen to be refused 
permission to cut the wheat when it is shaking, or to 

* By this it was not meant that they were doing an unlawful act 
because the corn was not their own, but by Sabbath-breaking. To 
pluck the ears of corn is permitted by Deut. xxiii., 25. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. I5 

carry it from the approaching storm? all which is ex- 
pressly forbidden on the Jewish Sabbath. 

21. The abolition of the lycvitical law was intended, 
but Jesus no where expressly declared it to be so. The 
same reason operated in the case of the abolition of the 
lyCvitical law as in the abolition of the Sabbath, to 
prevent him publicly declaring it. 

22. If Jesus had expressly declared that people were 
to work on the Sabbath, and that it was to be abolished, 
he would have offended against the 31st chapter and 15th 
verse of Bxodus. 

Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall 
surely be put to death. 

23. Indeed the strongest charges brought by the Jews 
against him were, that he had broken the Sabbath, and 
attempted the overthrow of the lyCvitical law. John 
says, V. 18. 

Wherefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he 
not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also, that God was 
his father. 

24. If any Jew attempted to destroy the law and con- 
stitution as established by Moses, he was clearly by that 
law liable to suffer the punishment of death. Exod. 
xxxi. 15. Numbers xv. 32. Dent. xiii. xxx. xxxi. 
14-18. 

25. And that such was the intention of the mission of 
Jesus is clearly proved by the result, with which we are 
all acquainted, as well as by the decision of the Apostles 



1 6 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

detailed in the book of their Acts, by which the whole 
of the old law is abolished, except four things, which 
are called necessary. 

26. The Apostles must have known from Jesus what 
was his intention ; besides, acting under the direction 
of the Holy Spirit, they could not err. When Jesus 
abolished the old law, of course he abolished every part 
of it which was not expressly excepted. 

In Matt. V. 17. Jesus says, Think not that I avi come to 
destroy the law, &c., but to fulfill it. 

27. This expression appears peculiarly clear and ap- 
propriate : and it seems extraordinary, that the learned 
and ingenious Unitarian, Mr. Evanson, should have 
found any difficulty in it. 

28. According to the account given of Jesus in the 
Gospels, it was evidently not his inclination to surrender 
himself to the Jews, until a particular period, when his 
mission had become fulfilled ; for this reason it was, 
that he repeatedly withdrew from them privately, when 
their rage threatened his life : for the same reason, he 
constantly spoke equivocally when he saw there was 
danger in speaking clearly, until the last moment, when 
he openly avowed himself to Pilate to be the Messiah. 
The question whether he came to abolish the old law 
was evidently a snare ; and if he had answered it in the 
affirmative, he would have been instantly liable to suffer 
death, according to the law given by God in Leviticus, 
and which he came to abolish : but the answer he gave 
was ambiguous to the Jews at that time, although clear 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 1 7 

to US now, if the correct meaning of the words be 
attended to. 

29. God entered into a covenant with the Jews to con- 
tinue until the coming of the Messiah.* 

30. Suppose I enter into a covenant with a man, to 
take a farm of me on certain terms for seven years. At 
the end of this time, is the covenant abolished? No. 
Are the terms or laws on which he held the farm 
abolished? No. The law or terms, as well as the 
covenant, are fulfilled, not abolished ; and, as the law- 
yers would say, the demise is determined. The word 
fufilled is 'the proper and true word to use, and if the 
word abolished or destroved had been substituted, it 
would have been wrong and untrue ; and as the institu- 
tion of the Sabbath was a part of the revealed law, or 
commandment of God, and was in no other way obliga- 
tory than the remainder of the old law, of course it falls 
under exactly the same rule, and as it was not excepted, 
was with it fulfilled. 

31. It has been said that the instances produced of 
Sabbath-breaking by Jesus and his disciples, are of so 
trifling a nature, that nothing can be implied from them. 
On the contrary, they were evidently done for the sake 
of agitating the question of the Sabbath ; and if some- 
thing important did not depend upon them, they are 
much too trifling to have been noticed at all. In each 
of the cases they are named, evidently for the sake of 
affording an opportunity, to record the expression of 

Jesus to the Pharisees, which came from him in the 

* See Matt. v. 17. 



l8 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

conversation which followed his act. The removal of 
the bed was no part of the miracle, and was totally and 
absolntely unnecessary, and directly in defiance of the 
old law. The act of pulling the corn, allowed by Deut. 
xxiii. 25, was equally an unnecessary act ; for if it 
belonged to his disciples, their residence must have been 
within a few minutes' walk ; and if it did not, it must 
have been in the centre of a populous country ; and if it 
were further than about one mile (a Sabbath-day's 
journey) from the place where Jesus rested the preced- 
ing night, he must have been guilty of a breach of the 
Sabbath, of a most remarkable and unequivocal descrip- 
tion, in travelling further than allowed by the law on 
the Sabbath-day. 

32. In order to form a judgment of the great conse- 
quence, which ought to be attached to the act of break- 
ing the Sabbath by Jesus, it. will be useful to consider, 
in what light it was viewed by the old law, and by the 
Jews with God's approbation : the reader v/ill then see, 
that the act of Jesus must in him be considered of the 
first consequence ; not as a trifle, as we at this day con- 
sider reaping corn or moving a bed. The following 
verses will set this in its proper light. Numbers xv. 

32. And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, 
they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day. 

33. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him 
unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation : 

34. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared 
what should be done unto him. 

35. And the Lord "^aid unto Moses, The man shall be surely 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. I9 

put to death : all the congregation shall stone him with stones 
without the camp. 

36. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, 
and stoned him with stones, and he died ; as the Lord com- 
manded Moses. 

33. If the character of Jesus be considered, it is very 
absurd to contend, that any act of his, recorded by the 
pen of an inspired writer, ought to be lightly estimated : 
this is actual profaneness in a Christian. It is incum- 
bent on every believer in his divine mission to look 
upon each action of his life as an action recorded for the 
purpose of example, or of affording an opportunity of 
inculcating some doctrine : and as such, the moving of a 
bed, or travelling, or pulling corn on the Sabbath, be- 
come circumstances of great moment, when recorded by 
the pen of an inspired writer. 

34. It has been said, that Jesus by preaching in the 
synagogue on that day kept the Sabbath. If this argu- 
ment be good for any thing, it shows that the Saturday, 
not the Sunday, ought to be kept. But in fact this 
proves nothing with respect either to the Saturday or 
Sunday ; for in preaching on the Sabbath-day, he only 
did what he did on every other day of the week ; and he 
evidently went into the synagogue because there the 
Jews were collected together. He was circumcised, and 
kept all the Jewish feasts and rites of the old law (unless 
the Sabbath be excepted); then if the Sabbath ought to 
be kept by Christians because he kept it, all the rites and 
ceremonies of the old law ought to be followed, because 
he followed them. This is the necessary consequence if 



20 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

persons reason consistently from cause to effect. As Dr. 
Paley correctly observes, 

* If the command by which the Sabbath was instituted be 
binding upon Christians, it must bind as to the day, the duties, 
and the penalty ; in none of which is it received.' 

35. The fact is, that his conduct appeared to be so 
equivocal to many of the Jewish Christians at that time, 
that they continued to observe the Jewish law with all 
its burthensome rites and ceremonies, until the council 
o^ the Apostles at Jerusalem, acting under the direction 
of the Holy Ghost, and speaking by the mouth of St. 
Paul to the citizens of Antioch, abolished the whole 
except four things. 

36. It appears from chapter the 15th of the Acts, that 
it was proposed that the Gentile converts should observe 
the law of Moses. Upon this a difference of opinion 
arose. Now there can be no doubt that if the Sabbath, 
or any other part of the old law were to be retained, it 
would have been here expressed : but the Apostles only 
require from the Gentiles to observe four things, which 
they call necessary, and expressly absolve them from the 
remainder ; and the observance of the Sabbath is not 
one of the four excepted. 

37. The Sabbath is a Jewish rite, not a moral law, 
and every such rite is expressly abolished. As the 
Decalogue, which is a part of the Jewish law, is not 
excepted, and depends on precisely the same authority as 
all the remainder, it must be held, unless it be specifically 
excepted as a code of law, to be abolished also : and the 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 21 

moral laws which are intermixed with the Jewish rites 
which it contains, must be held to depend upon their 
own truth or the commands of Jesus. 

28. For it hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, 
to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary 
things : 

29. That ye abstain from things offered to idols, and from 
blood, and from things strangled, and from f orotic ation ; from 
which if you keep yourselves, ye will do well. Acts xv. 28, 
also xxi. 25. 

38. It is here worthy of observation, that the part 
marked in Italics is no part of the Decalogue. 

39. Again, in Acts xxi. 25, the question respecting 
the observance of the old law is alluded to, and it is 
expressly forbidden. 

25. As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written 
and concluded, that they observe no such thing, save only 
that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and 
from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. 

40. Here, as it is a part of the old law, it is actually 
expressly forbidden. The Apostles, acting under the 
influence of the Holy Spirit, and speaking of the old law 
— the whole of it — say. We have concluded that they 
observe no such thing. 

41. How can words of prohibition be more clear than 
these? No such thing; save only, &c. If by ex- 
planation the Sabbath can be showm to be continued, 
there is no expression in any language which may not 
be explained to mean directly the reverse of what the 
speaker intended. 



22 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

42. This is quite enough to decide the question ; but 
we will see what St. Paul thought of it. 

43. Of course all Christians of the present day will 
allow, that where a doubt shall exist respecting the 
meaning of the Gospels, or of Jesus himself, if St. Paul 
have expounded it or explained it, his authority must 
be conclusive and binding upon them. In the following 
two verses, St. Paul has actually declared that the 
Sabbath was abolished : 

8. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another : for he 
that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 

9. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not 
kill, Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness, 
Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other command- 
ment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely. Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself — Rom. xiii, 8, 9. 

44. If there be any other commandment, it is what? 
Not the observance of the, or a. Sabbath. How can 
any thing be clearer than this? Besides, it is evident 
that in his letter of instruction to the Romans, he would 
have told them that they were to keep a day in lieu of it, 
if he had thought it imperative on them so to do. If St. 
Paul be authority, every commandment in Genesis or 
elsewhere in the Old Testament is expressly abolished. 

45. But in the following passage St. Paul goes much 
further, and not only abolishes the Sabbath, but actually 
declares himself against the compulsory use of days 
altogether as necessary appendages or parts of religion. 
St. Paul could not fail to know that the observance of 
days might be converted to the purposes of superstition, 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 23 

the same as all other forms and cerem.onies had been by 
some of the Pharisees, and other hypocritical pretenders 
to superior sanctity, to the exclusion or neglect of true 
devotion and the moral law. 

5. One man esteemeth one day above another ; another 
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded 
in his own mind. 

6. He that reg-ardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. 
And he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not 
regard it. — Rom. xiv. 5, 6. 

46. Here, unless we distort the meaning of plain 
words, St. Paul abolishes the compulsory observance of 
days, or states the observance of them not to be necessary ; 
but as the observance of certain days may evidently have 
no guilt in it, he says. If 3^ou think it right to keep 
them, it is well ; but if you think otherwise, it is also 
well. In both cases, it is to the Lord^ to use his mode of 
expression. 

47. In the second chapter of the Bpistle to the Colos- 
sians, verse 16, is a passage in which St. Paul again ex- 
presses himself against the observance of fixed days, or 
Sabbaths. 

48. Dr. Paley prefaces his quotation of this text with 
the following observation : and no person but as degraded 
a fanatic as Johanna Southcote, or the modern ranters, 
will treat the opinion of the venerable Paley with dis- 
respect. He says, 

' St. Paul evidently appears to have considered the Sabbath 
as part of the Jewish ritual, and not obligatory upon Christians.' 



24 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

49. If St. Paul have evidently decided the question, 
surely Christians may safely rest upon his authority : 
he says, 

16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or 
in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath- 
days ; 

17. Which are a shadow of things to come : but the body is 
of Christ. 

50. By the use of meats or drinks, he must allude to 
the use of them on fast-days, because the use of them on 
other days no man ever said was wrong. The same 
argument must apply to the neglect of feast-days regu- 
lated by the state of the moon. The same of the Sab- 
bath ; for it is not maintained that there was any guilt 
in keeping a day of rest : the offence was in breaking it : 
and here St. Paul must be construed to mean, Let no 
man condemn you for the breach of the Sabbath. It 
seems absurd to construe it to mean, Let no man con- 
demn you because you choose to keep a Sabbath or day 
of rest. If it be so construed, then it must also be said, 
(to be consistent,) Let no man condemn you for merely 
taking necessary food. If it do not mean. Let no man 
condemn yoti for taking meat on some days when it is 
forbidden, it is actual nonsense. But in a few verses he 
seems to explain his own meaning. 

20. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the 
world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to 
ordinances, 

21. (Touch not, taste not, handle not: 

22. Which all are to perish with the using,) after the com- 
mandments and doctrines of men ? 



HOR^ SABBATIC^ 25 

23. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will- 
worship and humility, and neglecting of the body ; not in 
any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. 

51. In the next chapter he goes on to direct the 
Colossians to seek those things which are above. 

Mind the things above, not the things below, &c. 

52. The whole of this train of reasoning is consistent 
wifh itself, and also with what he has said in the Epistle 
to the Romans, xiv. 

He who regardeth the day, regardeth it to the Lord ; and 
he who regardeth not the day, to the Lord he regardeth it not. 

53. The whole of St. Paul's preaching goes to in- 
culcate that the observance of feasts and fasts is a matter 
merely optional, and that the observance or non-ob- 
servance of them is no offence, and consequently he is 
directly against the compelling their observance by law. 

54 In the whole of the Epistles, there . does not seem 
to be a single clear, unequivocal passage in favor of the 
Sabbath. In almost numberless places breakers of such 
of the commandments as are in themselves moral rules, 
independent of the law of Moses, are condemned in the 
strongest terms : for example, i Cor. vi. 9, 10. Gal. v. 
19 — 21. 2 Tim. iii. 2. 

55. But in not one of them is a Sabbath-breaker 
named. How does this happen? The reason is suffi- 
ciently plain. The breach of the Sabbath under the old 
law was a breach of the covenant with God, and there- 
fore a high offence ; but the Sabbath being abolished, 
under the new law it was none. 



sj 26 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

56. Although Dr. Paley does not agree with the author 
entirely respecting the Lord's-day, he makes several ad- 
missions, which, coming from him, are very important. 
He says, 

* A cessation upon that day (meaning Sunday) from labor, 
beyond the time of attendance upon public worship, is not 
intimated in any passage of the New Testament; nor did 
Christ or his Apostles deliver, that we know of, any command 
to their disciples for a discontinuance upon that day of the 
common offices of their professions.' 

57. Upon this it may be observed, neither is the ne- 
cessity of attendance upon public worship intimated 
particularly upon that day, in preference to any other. 
Nothing is said upon the subject, therefore nothing can 
be inferred. So that the proof of the necessity of 
attendance on divine worship must be sought for else- 
where. * In fact, the non-inculcation of public worship 

*In the four Gospels, no person can point out a single passage 
which, in clear unequivocal terms, directs the observance of public 
worship. One text may be shown where it is tolerated ; 

Where two or three are gathered together in one place, I will grant their request. 

And one where it is discouraged, at the least, if it be not expressly 
prohibited ; and w^here such persons as may not think it necessary, 
are expressly justified for its non-observance : 

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are : for they love to 
pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen 
of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. 

6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet ; and when thou hast shut thy 
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall 
reward thee openly.— Matt. vi. 5, 6. 

Except these two texts in the Gospel, the author knows not one 
which alludes to public worship ; — a thing wdth pageantry, &c., &c., 
as much abused sometimes by Christians, as ever it w^as by Jews or 
Heathens, The attendance of Jesus in the synagogues can no more 
be cited to support it, than his observance of the passover and other 
Jewish rites can be cited to support the rest of the laws of Leviticus 
abolished by the Acts. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 27 

in the passages alluded to above, proves nothing either 
for or against it : only it goes to prove that it was not 
particularly ordered on the first day, more than on the 
seventh or any other day, and leaves the times for its 
observance open to be fixed on what days the govern- 
ment, or the rulers of the churches think proper. — What 
is said here must not be construed as a wish to prohibit 
all public worship; but only to place it on a correct 
footing as a right of discipline, and to discourage the 
fashionable pharisaical doctrine, that all merit is included 
in praying in the synagogues^ and at the corners of the 
streets^ and making long speeches at Bible Society 
meetings, &c. 

Again, Paley says, * The opinion, that Christ and his Apostles 
meant to retain the duties of the Jewish Sabbath, shifting only 
the day from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail without 
sufficient proof; nor does any evidence remain in Scripture, 
(of what, however, is not improbable) that the first day of the 
week was thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord's 
resurrection.' — Mor. Phil. p. 337. Ed. 8vo. 

58. Certainly in Scripture there is no evidence. 

59. In this view of the doctrines of St. Paul the 
author is happy to have so learned and respectable a 
divine as Michaelis of his opinion. And indeed as the 
opinion of Michaelis is not objected to by Bishop Marsh, 
his translator, in his usual way by a note, where he 
disapproves any thing, the author seems to have a right 
to claim him also. 

Michaelis, chap. xv. s. 3. says, ' The Epistle to the Colos- 
sians resembles that to the Ephesians, both in its contents and 



28 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

in its language, so that the one illustrates the other. In all 
three, the Apostle shows the superiority of Christ to the Angels, 
and warns the Christians against the worship of Angels. He 
censures the observatio7i of Sabbaths, rebukes those who forbid 
marriage, and the touching of certain things, who deliver 
commandments of men concerning meats, and prohibit 
them.* 

60. Some well-meaning persons, looking about for 
any thing which might aid them in the support of the 
early prejudices of their nurseries and education, have 
fancied, that they could find a Sabbath in the practice 
of the Apostles of meeting together on the first day of 
the week. This question we will now examine, and see 
whether they, on that day, did meet, and if from these 
meetings a rite of such prodigious importance as the 
renovation of the Jewish Sabbath can be inferred. 

61. There are only three passages in the New Testa- 
ment, which make mention of the Apostles' being 
assembled on the first day of the week. The first is 
on the day of the resurrection, John xx. 19. 

19. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of 
the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were 

* It gives the author great satisfaction to have an opportunity of 
bearing his humble testimony to the conduct of Michaehs and Bishop 
Marsh. In reading their works, his pleasure is never diminished by 
the fear of wilful misrepresentation, economical reasoning, or false 
quotation. They are as superior to most of their predecessors or 
cotemporaries in integrity, as they are in talent. His Lordship has 
been seldom out of polemical warfare, and has experienced the usual 
vicissitutes of victory and defeat (the later for instance by Gandol- 
phy); but conqueror or conquered, he has never stooped to the mean- 
ness of a pious fraud. It is one of the misfortunes of the author, 
never to have had the opportunity either to speak to or to see the 
venerable Bishop, one of the greatest ornaments of the bench in the 
present day. 



HOR/E SABBATIC^. 29 

assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the 
midst of them. 

62. Jesus Christ is described to have risen that day 
before day-light in the morning, and after all the various 
events which in the course of the first part of that event- 
ful day had happened to several of them, it was very 
natural that they should assemble together as soon as 
possible, to confer respecting them, and to consider what 
was the proper line of conduct for them to pursue. It is 
absurd to suppose that this assembly could be held to 
celebrate the rites of the religion, before the Apostles 
were all of them satisfied that he had risen, and that his 
body had not been stolen, as it is stated that some of 
them at first suspected. The peculiar accidental cir- 
cumstances evidently caused this meeting to be held as 
soon as possible after the resurrection, and it would have 
been the fourth or any other day, if Jesus had happened 
to have arisen on that day. 

63. But it is necessary to observe, for the information 
of such persons as have not made the Jewish customs 
and antiquities their study, that the computation of time 
amongst the Jews was very different from ours ; and it is 
evidently necessary to consider the words of the texts 
with reference to their customs, not to ours. Our day 
begins at or after twelve o'clock at night, theirs began 
at or after six o'clock in the evening. In Genesis it is 
said. And the evening and the morning were the first 
day. If the day had begun as ours does, it would have 
said. The morning and the evening were the first day ; 
and in Levit. xxiii. 32, it is said, From even to even shall 



30 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

you celebrate your Sabbath; consequently, the Jewish 
Sabbath began on Friday evening at about six o'clock, 
and their supper, or, as it is called, their breaking of 
bread, took place immediately after ; the candles being 
ready lighted, and the viands being placed on the tables, 
so that no work by the servants might be necessary ; 
and there they remained on the tables till after six the 
next evening. The custom of breaking bread in token 
of amity and brotherly love, was an old custom of the 
Jews, something like the giving of salt amongst the 
Arabians, and is continued amongst them to this day. 

64. By the word day two clear and distinct ideas are 
expressed ; it means the light part of the twenty-four 
hours, in opposition to the dark part of them, and it 
means the period itself of the twenty-four hours — one 
revolution of the earth upon its axis. 

65. In the expression here, the same day at evenings 
the word day must mean, the day-light part of the day, 
in opposition to the dark part of it — the night ; because 
Jesus could not have appeared literally on the evening of 
the first day of the week; that is, after six o'clock on 
the Saturday evening, he not having risen at that time ; 
therefore this meeting, being probably after six o'clock 
in the evening, on account of the return of the two 
Apostles from Emmaus that day, the day of the resurec- 
tion, Ivuke xxiv. 30 ; it, in fact, must have taken place, 
though on the first day-light day, a little before sunset ; 
yet, on the second, not on the first Jewish day of the 
week. It is not surprising that persons should find a 
difficulty in clearing their minds from the prejudices, 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 3 1 

created by long habit and education, respecting the ques- 
tion and expression of the first day of the week. But if 
they will only give themselves the trouble carefully to 
examine, the truth must prevail. 

66. For these various reasons, whether the meeting 
named in John xx. 19, be considered the first day of the 
week, or the second, no inference in favor of a Sabbatical 
observance of the Sunday can be deduced : for it was 
merely accidental whether it were the first day or the 
second. 

67. In the 26th verse of the twentieth chapter of John, 
it is said, 

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and 
Thomas with them. 

68. Whether the meeting above alluded to was on the 
first or second day of the week, it does not seem clear 
how this, the day after eight days, should be the first, i. 
e. the eighth day. It may have been the ninth in one 
case, and the tenth in the other; but in no case can it 
have been the first or the eighth day. If this passage 
meant to describe the meeting to have been on the first 
day of the week, it would have said. On the first day ; 
or, After several days ; or. On the day after the Sab- 
bath. The expression evidently proves that it could 
not be the first. 

69. The next passage, which is in the Acts of the 
Apostles, XX. 7, is as follows : 

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came 
together to break bread, Paul preached unto them (ready to 



32 HOR^ SABBATIC^.. 

depart on the morrow), and continued his speech until mid- 
night. 

70. As a learned layman, in his controversy with Dr. 
Priestley, has justly observed : This meeting, according 
to the Jewish custom, and form of language, and com- 
putation of time, could have taken place at no other 
time than after six o'clock on Saturday evening: there 
was but one time, viz. the evening of each day, when 
they met for the purpose of breaking of bread ; and it 
therefore necessarily follows, that the preaching of Paul 
must have taken place on the Saturday night, after six 
o'clock, by our mode of computation, ready to depart 
on the morrow, at day-break. Surely the preaching of 
Paul on Saturday night, and his travelling on the 
Sunday, cannot be construed into a proof that he kept 
the Sunday as a Sabbath. 

71. In the only subsequent passage where the first day 
of the week is named, i Cor. xvi. 2, the same gentleman 
has shown, that if any inference is to be drawn from the 
words contained in it, they go against the observance of 
it as a Sabbath, and imply that a man on that day was 
to settle his accounts of the week preceding, that he 
might be able to ascertain what he could lay up in store 
against Paul came. 

Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by 
him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no 
gatherings when I come. 

72. How can any one see in this verse, a proof that the 
first day of the week was to be kept by Christians as an 
obligation, as a Jewish Sabbath? It is well known that 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 33 

at first the Christians strictly kept the Jewish Sabbath ; 
therefore they could not make a weekly settlement of 
their accounts till the day after the Sabbath, which was 
the first. It is observed by the same learned person, in 
his controversy with Dr. Priestley, 

'I would as soon misspend my time in attempting- to prove 
that the sun shone at noon-day, to a person who should persist 
in affirming it to be then midnight-darkness, as I would con- 
tend with any one who will assert, that an express precept for 
a man to lay by money, in his own custody, signifies that he 
should deposit it, in the custody of another person : or who, well 
knowing that in the time of the Apostles, the hour of assem- 
bling together, both for their ordinary chief meal, and for the 
celebration of the Lord's supper, was in the evening, at the 
beginning of the Jewish day, persists in maintaining, that a 
predication which St. Luke informs us took place at that par- 
ticular time, did not commence then, but at an hour when 
they never assembled for those purposes. I will, therefore, 
only remark, on the latter instance, that I am sorry to appear 
so ignorant to Dr. Priestley, as not to have known, that 
amongst the Jews, as in every other nation, the word day was 
used sometimes to denote the periodical revolution of twenty- 
four hours ; at others to express day-light, in opposition to 
darkness or night. I am sure the force of my argument re- 
quired that it should be so understood. And I only quoted 
the beginning of Acts iv. to convince Subsidiarius, whose head 
seemed to be prepossessed with modern English ideas, that 
though the word morrow, or morning, in our language signi- 
•fies the next civil day, because our evening and subsequent 
morning are in different days, yet, amongst the Jews, when 
opposed to the preceding night or evening, it meant the same 
civil day ; because, with them, the evening and followmg 
morning were in the same day.' 

']2)' The texts here cited being disposed of, it is only 
necessary to observe, that there is not the smallest 
evidence to be found, either positive or presumptive. 



34 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

that the Apostles or disciples of Jesus considered the 
first day of the week in any way whatever different from 
the following five. 

74. In the two first Epistles of John will be found 
many passages inculcating obedience to the command- 
ments of God, and of Jesus in general terms, and specify- 
ing some ordinances as commandments, which are not 
to be found in the Decalogue, v. 15 : whence it appears 
that the word commandment cannot be construed to 
apply exclusively to the Decalogue, or to mean any one 
commandment in particular ; especially one like the 
observance of the Sabbath, that is not binding by any 
moral law, — one which must depend entirely, either in 
the old or new law, upon a specific revelation, and not 
upon the general principles of morality which have been 
acknowledged in all ages and nations, — one which is 
actually, as has been shown in the Acts, xv. 28, spe- 
cifically abolished by Jesus, — and one which, by the 
the instances of the miracle of the pool of Bethesda and 
the reaping of the corn, is also abolished, if any rule of 
conduct can be deduced from his actions. 

75. If there be two ways of construing the New Testa- 
ment, or any work whatever, one of which makes it 
totally inconsistent with itself, and the other consistent, 
common sense dictates, that the latter should be adopted. 
Now if we maintain that by commandments all the 
Decalogue or the orders in lycviticus are meant, we 
expressly contradict the passage of the Acts, where all 
the old law is abolished except four particulars, and we 
make the book inconsistent with itself. But if we 



HOR^ SABBATIC^.. 35 

construe it, that in this passage of John the word com- 
mandment only means these which are excepted, and 
those given in addition by Jesus, the whole is consistent. 

"jG. It cannot be said that by this the laws of morality 
laid down in the Decalogue are abolished, because if 
they did not remain firm on the general principles of the 
moral law of all nations, yet every law of morality 
essential to the welfare of mankind, is excepted from 
the abolition in various places ; for instance, in i Cor. 
vi. 9, lo. Gal. V. 19, 20, 2 Tim. iii. 2, where particular 
parts of the old law are alluded to and re-enacted, and in 
I John iii. 23, iv. 21, where new commandments of 
morality are given much superior to some of the old 
ones, and the meaning of the word commandment is 
actually explained. 

"]"]. By this reasoning we are no longer encumbered 
with some parts of the Decalogue, which, to say the 
least of them, it is not easy to explain in a manner 
satisfactory to the minds of young persons, and even of 
many serious thinking persons of more mature age ; 
who find a difficulty in reconciling their minds to such 
passages as that relating to a jealous God ; a passage 
merely applicable to the Jews. 

78. Some persons have supposed, that the word com- 
mandments in the Old Testament necessarily means the 
Decalogue, and the Decalogue exclusively. This inter- 
pretation cannot be supported, because the word com- 
mandment is used in its common or usual sense as a 
command or order of God, before the Decalogue was 
given, as in Exod. xvi. 28. 



36 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep 
my commandments and my laws? 

79. The pious Christian will not forget, that the moral 
law is not entirely dependent either on the law of Moses 
or of Christ ; though they have confirmed it, yet it was 
binding on all mankind before Moses or Jesus were 
either of them born. Although there were no Jews or 
Christians, can it be supposed that the moral law, the law 
of right and wrong, was unknown to Abraham and the 
patriarchs before him? This would indeed be absurd 
enough. It must be also recollected, that the whole law 
of morality is not contained in the Decalogue ; and yet 
the breach of this law, although in instances where it is 
not named in that code, is a sin, both to Jews and others. 

80. Nor will a man be held blameless if he keep all 
the laws of the Decalogue, and commit some sins not 
therein named. For there are several heinous sins 
not named in that code. All the sins against the moral 
law prohibited in the Decalogue, and several others 
therein not named, are forbidden by Jesus and Paul over 
and over again. Therefore, as a code of law^ what loss 
can the abolition of the Decalogue be? Is not the new 
law which God delivered by Jesus, as binding as that 
delivered by Moses ? 

81. It is well known that the version of the Pentateuch 
called the Septuagint, was anciently translated from 
the Hebrew into the Greek language, by certain Jews^ 
either for the use of Ptolemy Philadelphus, or of their 
countrymen residing at Alexandria. When these persons 
came to the translation of the word Jehovah, they found 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 'X;! 

themselves in a difficulty ; for it was an acknowledged 
doctrine of their religion, never disputed by any of their 
prophets or priests, that this name, by which God had 
thought proper to designate himself in the third verse of 
the sixth chapter of Exodus, ought never to be written 
or spoken upon any occasion, except the most awful and 
important. And it is the use or abuse of this particular 
name of God, to which the Jews always understood the 
command of the Decalogue to apply, which we render by 
the words. Thou shall nol take Ihe name of the Lord thy 
God 171 vain. But which ought to be rendered. Thou 
shall not take the name ^Jehovah thy God in vain. 
This word, Jehovah, was inscribed on the golden plate 
on the forehead of the High-priest, when he entered the 
Holy of Holies, and also on his breast plate : and lest it 
should suffer any change, it was written in the Samaritan 
letters, those in which the Pentateuch was originally 
written, and from which it was translated into Hebrew 
by Ezra, after the Captivity. In the time of St. Jerom, 
it still continued written in many Hebrew and Greek 
Bibles in the Samaritan character. When the Jews 
came to this word in their translation, in order to avoid 
the profaneness of writing it literally, they adopted the 
word A'opto^, or Eord ; and thus got over the difficulty. But 
this contrivance does not in any way alter the nature of 
the command of the Decalogue, which still continues in 
all its original force applicable to the Jews, and to all 
Christians too, if they maintain the Decalogue to be 
excepted from the abolition of the other commandments 
of God in Exodus and I^eviticus. Christians say this 



38 HOR^E SABBATIC^. 

interpretation of the word is only an idle superstition of 
the Jews. It is no more idle superstition to them, than 
is the prohibition to sow blended corn, or plough with 
an ox yoked to an ass. It is an idle superstition to the 
Christian, because Jesus abolished it in not excepting it. 
If Jesus did not abolish the Decalogue as a code of law, 
then we must no more write the word Jehovah : for the 
Decalogue applies solely to the use of the word Jehovah, 
and not to our disgraceful and odious habit of profane 
swearing, to which our modern translators have applied 
it. Does the considerate and unprejudiced Christian 
really think, that Jesus intended this doctrine respecting 
the use of the word Jehovah to be continued by Chris- 
tians? What has been said respecting the word Jehovah 
in the Decalogue cannot be disputed ; and when Chris- 
tian priests call the construction given to it by the Jews 
an idle superstition, they surely can neither be praised 
for their piety nor for their prudence. The reverence 
for the peculiar name Jehovah commanded to the Jews, 
was one of those things not intended to be continued 
under the Christian dispensation, and therefore was not 
excepted by Jesus, when he was abolishing the Jewish 
code. And the very circumstance shows that the Deca- 
logue as a code of law was not intended to be continued. 
In translating the Old Testament, Christians do wrong 
in not translating the word Jehovah literally. The Jews 
were not only excusable in translating it by the word 
lyord, but they would have been sinful if they had trans- 
lated it literally. 

82. Persons must not entertain the idea, that because 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 39 

the ten laws in the Decalogne were intended solely for 
the Jews, the laws of morality were not binding npon 
others. They were bound by them just as much as if 
the Decalogue had never been promulgated. If the 
Decalogue as a code of law were binding upon the 
Gentiles, then were they bound to keep the Sabbath ; 
and surely no one can pretend that that was ever 
intended, or that a single word in all the Bible can be 
shown expressive of disapprobation of the conduct of 
the Gentiles in not keeping it. Persons reasoning 
correctly, must remember that the observance of a 
Sabbath is not a moral law, but a rite of discipline. 

83. The Decalogue was no more binding on the Jews, 
than any other of God's commands. There can be no 
distinction or preference of one command to another. 
All the commands of God are alike entitled to iitstant 
unqualified obedieiice. Nor can any doctrine so contrary 
to the character of God, be deduced from the giving of 
the Decalogue by him to the Jews, as that, of one com- 
mand being more worthy of obedience than another. 

84. The state of the case with the Decalogue is pre- 
cisely like what often takes place with the English law. 
The Parliament, for reasons sometimes good and some- 
times bad, passes a declaratory act to declare what the 
law is, or perhaps to increase the penalties for an offence. 
This act then becomes a part of the English code. It 
afterward passes an act to repeal this act ; by this the 
law reverts to its original state, as if no such act had 
ever been passed. This was the case with respect to the 
doctrine of the Trinity ; an act was passed to declare or 



40 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

to increase the penalties for impugning it ; that act has 
been repealed ; but the judges have declared, that though 
that act has been repealed, it is still, at common law, an 
offence to impugn the Trinity, and that it is punishable 
by them. Thus, when the Decalogue as a code of law 
was abrogated, the laws of morality reverted to exactly 
what they were in the time of Abraham ; and as such 
they remain to Christians, unless Jesus added any thing 
to them ; and this we know that he did ; for he expressly 
says, A new commandment give I unto you, lyOVE one 

ANOTHER. 

85. At this day no Christians will maintain that the 
laws of Moses are any longer obligatory upon them ; 
and yet Jesus has not expressly made any declaration to 
that effect. He obeyed them all strictly, with the ex- 
ception of that law relating to the Sabbath which he 
took various opportunities of violating ; and most ab- 
surdly, this is the only part of the ceremonial, or not 
strictly moral law, which is now attempted to be retained 
by the modern Pharisees. His doctrine was so equivo- 
cal respecting the old law, that the Apostles themselves 
did not understand it, even after they had received the 
Holy Spirit. For we find the inspired Peter defending 
the old Jewish law at Antioch ; and this must have been 
many years after the death of Jesus ; because the Apostles 
remained at Jerusalem some years before they separated 
on their missions to the Gentiles, if the early fathers 
are to be believed, twelve years. 

86. If there be yet any persons who believe that the 
Sabbath was not abolished by Jesus Christ, they are 



HOR.^ SABBATIC^. 41 

requested to observe, that they are bound to keep it as 
the Jews kept it ; they can neither light a fire nor cook 
meat on the Sabbath ; and for the punishment to which 
they render themselves liable, if they do, they are refer- 
red to Numbers xv. 32 — 36, as previously quoted. 

32. And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, 
they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day. 

33. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him 
unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation : 

34. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared 
what should be done unto him. 

35. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely 
put to death : all the congregation shall stone him with stones 
without the camp. 

36. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, 
and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord com- 
manded Moses. 



HOR.E SABBATICyE. 

PART II. 



HORyE SABBATICyE. 

PART II. 



FROM the following verse in the second chapter of 
Genesis: 'And God blessed the seventh day, and 
sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested from all 
the work which God created and made.' 

2. Many persons have maintained, that the Sabbath 
was instituted at the creation, and therefore that it is 
binding on all mankind, and not confined to the Jews. 
This would seem a fair inference, if the contrary were 
not expressly declared ; and therefore the book of Genesis 
must be considered to have been written, by Moses 
writing the account two thousand five hundred years after 
the event, proleptically. * And it is a very strong cir- 
cumstance in favor of this, that it cannot be shown from 
the sacred books, that any one of the Patriarchs before 
the flood, or after it, ever kept a Sabbath, or that it ever 
was kept, until ordered by Moses on the journey of the 
Israelites from Egypt to Sinai. If the first Patriarchs 

had kept it, in the history of more than two thoiisand 
* Paley's Moral Philosophy. 

(45) 



46 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

five hundred years, from Adam to Moses, it must have 
been noticed or alluded to. The lives and domestic 
transactions of Noah and his family, of Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Joseph, are very particularly described ; but 
not a single word is ever said of their keeping a Sabbath, 
or censure upon them for neglecting it, or permission for 
them in Egypt, or elsewhere, to dispense with it. Upon 
the meaning of the above passage of Genesis, the Rev. 
Dr. Paley says : 

'Although the blessing and sanctification, i. e. the religious 
distinction and appropriation of that day, was not actually 
made till many ages afterwards. The words do not assert, 
that God then 'blessed' and 'sanctified' the seventh day; but 
that he blessed and sanctified \i for that reaso7i : and if any 
ask, why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was 
then mentioned, if it was not the7i appointed, the answer is at 
hand; the order of connection, and not of time, introduced the 
mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it 
was ordained to commemorate.' 

3. When the author of Genesis was giving an account 
of the orders of God to Adam to erect a tabernacle, or 
place of worship, to the east of Eden — to Cain and Abel to 
offer sacrifice — to Noah also to sacrifice when coming out 
of the ark, and to the latter to abstain from eating blood, 
&c. ; and when he was describing the institution of cir- 
cumcision, and the paying of tithes by Abraham, he 
would certainly have said something respecting the Sab- 
bath if it had been then instituted. For of all the rites 
and ceremonies, there was not one of any thing like the 
importance of this to the inhabitants of the world, either 
before or after the flood. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 47 

4. An attempt has been made to remove the objection 
which arises from the omission of any notice of the Sab- 
bath, by the writer of the Pentateuch, before the time of 
Moses, by observing that the very notoriety of a custom 
may be the reason why it is never named : and as an 
example of this kind, the circumstance of circumcision 
never having been named, from the settlement of the 
Israelites in Canaan down to the circumcision of Jesus 
Christ, has been produced. But this argument, the 
whole of the seventeenth chapter of Genesis completely 
refutes. All the circumstances there detailed, evidently 
show that it had not been commonly used before that 
time. If the observance of the Sabbath had been a 
common thing, like the observance of circumcision, it 
would have been named without further notice, as cir- 
cumcision is named when Jesus was circumcised. The 
difference in the treatment of the two cases is decisivel} 
in favor of the author's argument. When the circum- 
cision of Jesus is named, the history of circumcision is 
not given as the history of the Sabbath is given in 
Kxodus. If circumcision had been then first instituted, 
its history would have been given. And the reason why 
it was not named in the interval alluded to was this, 
that there was no occasion for it, as it was universally 
practised during all that time, both by Jews and the 
o^/ier nations. The reason why the Sabbath was not 
named as being kept by the Patriarchs was, because it 
was not kept by them, and they knew nothing about it. 

5. Archbishop Magee says, note 57, on the Doc. of 
At. : "But in what way is the divine appointment of the 



48 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

Sabbath recorded? Is it any where asserted by Moses, 
that God had ordered Adam and his posterity to dedicate 
every seventh day to holy uses, and to the worship of his 
name ; or that they ever did so, in observance of any 
such command? No such thing. It is merely said, 
that having rested from the work of creation, God blessed 
the seventh day^ and sanctified it. Now, so far is this 
passage from being universally admitted to imply a 
command for the sacred observance of the Sabbath, that 
s'ome have altogether denied the SablDath to have been 
instituted by divine appointment : and the Fathers in 
general, and especially Justin Martyr, have been con- 
sidered as totally rejecting the notion of a patriarchal 
Sabbath. But although, especially after the very able 
and learned investigation of this subject by Dr. Kennicot 
in the second of his two dissertations, no doubt can 
reasonably be entertained of the import of this passage, 
as relating the divine institution of the Sabbath, yet 
still the rapidity of the historian has left this rather as 
matter of inference : and it is certain, that he has no 
where made express mention of the observance of a 
Sabbath, until the time of Moses." 

6. Mr. Beausobre, in his Introduction to the New 
Testament, expressly allows, and gives his reasons for 
believing, that the Sabbath was not instituted till the 
time of Moses. He admits also, that when it was insti- 
tuted, it was a festival, not a fast ; and he points out the 
circumstance of Jesus going to a feast on that day, lyuke 
xiv. I. He asserts that it was given as a sign of the 
covenant ; and was limited to one people, the Jews. He 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 49 

shows that the conduct of Jesus on the Sabbath places it 
on the same footing as the other Jewish ceremonies. He 
allows, that in Genesis the sanctifying the Sabbath-day 
was spoken by way of anticipation. He says, feastings 
and rejoicings were also thought essential to the Sabbath, 
according to Philo, Josephus, and the Thalmudists. — 
Beaus. Int. Parti, p. 193, &c.* He further says, 

' The account of the creation was not given till after the 
coming of the children of Israel out of Egypt, with a design to 
turn them from idolatry and the worshipping of creatures. 
Moses takes from thence an occasion of giving them to under- 
stand, that this is the reason why God hath sanctified the 
seventh day, and appointed this festival, to be by them cele- 
brated every week. Upon this supposition, the sanctifying of 
the Sabbath does not relate to the creation of the world, where 
we find it mentioned, but to after ages. — Ibid. 

7. If the expression in the second chapter of Genesis 
had been understood by Moses or any of the Prophets to 
be applicable to all mankind, when they were reproach- 
ing the Gentiles for their sins in innumerable instances, 
and enumerating their offences seriatim, (to warn the 
Israelites against them,) they would some time or other 
have reproached them for their neglect of the Sabbath. 
The Bible is almost filled with the reproachings of the 
Israelites for their imitations of the vices of the Gentiles, 
and for their neglect of the Sabbath : but in no one 
instance is it ever hinted, that the neglect of the Sabbath 
was one of these examples of imitation. It also is quite 

* This book is peculiarly used as a lecture book, by the University 
of Cambridge, and therefore it is fair to conclude, that this learned 
body, in which several of our most learned bishops are included, has 
no objection to its doctrines. 



50 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

incredible, that the Gentiles should not have been even 
once reproached, for the neglect of this very important 
rite, if it had been considered applicable to them ; and if 
it were not applicable to them, it evidently cannot be 
applicable to us. 

8. We will now proceed to examine the passages in the 
Old Testament relating to this subject. 

9. In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus the Sabbath is 
first instituted ; as it is said in the fourth verse, in order 
that the Lord might know whether the Israelites would 
walk in his way or not. And in the fifth verse it is said, 
that twice as much manna was sent on the sixth day as 
on other days. In the twenty-second and twenty-third 
verses, the rulers come to Moses for an explanation of 
the reason of the double quantity coming on the sixth 
day ; and then Moses explains to them that the seventh 
day is to be a Sabbath, or day of rest ; but he there gives 
them no reason why the seventh day was fixed on, rather 
than the sixth or any other day ; and in this chapter it 
is merely stated to be ordered to try them if they would 
walk in the way of the lyord or not. 

22. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered 
twice as much bread, two omers for one man : and all the 
rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 

23. And he said unto them. This is that which the Lord hath 
said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: 
bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will 
seethe ; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be 
kept until the morning. 

24. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade ; and 
it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 51 

25. And Moses said, Eat that to-day , for to-day is a Sab- 
bath unto tlie Lord : to-day ye shall not find it in the field. 

26. Six days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day, 
which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. 

27. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the 
people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. 

28. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to 
keep my commandments and my laws? 

29. See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, 
therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days: 
abide ye every man in his place ; let no man go out of his place 
on the seventh day. 

30. So the people rested on the seventh day. 

TO. In several places of the quotation above, a mis- 
translation has taken place ; the definite or emphatic 
article has been used instead of the indefinite one. Thus, 
in the twenty-third verse it is said, the rest of the holy 
Sabbath, instead oi a rest oi a holy Sabbath. Again, in 
the tv^enty-sixth verse it ought to have been said, on the 
seventh day, which is a Sabbath, in it, &c., not the 
Sabbath, &c. 

II. In the twenty-ninth verse the emphatic or definite 
article is correctly used, the Sabbath, according to the 
Hebrew text, the Sabbath being there spoken of as 
instituted. The author has been the more particular in 
the examination of these texts, because he has met with 
several clergymen, not learned in the Hebrew langtiage, 
who have maintained, that from the use of the emphatic 
article in the places in question, a previous establish- 
ment, and an existence of the Sabbath must be neces- 
sarily inferred. But the fact is, that the contrary infer- 



52 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

ence must be drawn from tlie Hebrew text : and no 
Hebrew scholar will doubt a moment on the correctness 
of what is said respecting the Hebrew definite article. 
It is not one of the points of this language about which 
there has been any dispute. 

12. If this related merely to the common affairs of life, 
no one would doubt that the coming of the rulers of the 
congregation to Moses showed clearly that they were 
ignorant of the Sabbath — that they had never heard of 
such a thing before : for if they had known that it was 
unlawful to provide food, or gather sticks to light a fire 
to cook it, or to do any other act of work or labor, how 
could they have had any doubt what the double quantity 
was sent for on the day before the Sabbath? And the 
answer given by Moses in the next verse. This is what 
the Lord hath said, implies that the information given 
to them was new. If the practice of keeping the Sab- 
bath had prevailed with the Israelites when in Egypt in 
their bondage, (a thing very unlikely,) or if it had been 
known to them that it was their duty to keep it when in 
their power, the book would simply have told us, that 
they gathered twice as much on the sixth day, because 
the next was the Sabbath ; there would have been no 
coming together of the elders, or of speech-making by 
Moses. Besides, the text says, that it was ordered here 
to try them, whether they would walk in the way of 
Jehovah at this particular time or not. This is directly 
contrary to the idea of its being an established ordinance 
from the creation. It was here given as a test of their 
obedience — it was continued afterwards, as a sign of the 



HOR.^ SABBATtC^. 53 

covenant entered into betwixt God and them. Nor is 
there any where an intimation, that the appointment of 
the Sabbath was the renewal of an ancient institution, 
which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended. 

13. In the Decalogue which is ordained in the twenti- 
eth chapter of Exodus, the Sabbath is first given in all 
its plenitude ; but it is with the remainder of the Deca- 
logue expressly limited to the children of Israel. God 
begins with saying, I am the Lord thy'^ God, which have 
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house 
of bondage. Here he calls the Israelites thee ; and he 
goes on throughout the whole addressing them in the 
second person singular, Thoit shalt have no other Gods 
but me, &c. If the language is to bear its common and 
usual signification, the law as here given is limited to 
the Israelites. Upon the meaning of this passage may 
be applied, the very excellent rule of criticism laid down 
by Bishop Horsley in his controversy with Dr. Priestley. 

'It is a principle with me, that the true sense of any phrase 
in the New Testament is what may be called its standing sense, 
that which will be the first to occur to common people of every 
country and in every age.' — Horsley to Priestley, p. 23; Priest- 
ley's Letters to Horsley, p. 289. 

14. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus, at the tenth 
verse, the emphatic or definite article has been substituted 
for the indefinite one, the same as has been done in the 
sixteenth chapter, as was before shown. 

*The proQOUQ is here ^eiy correctly translatetl from the Hebrew : 
it is precisely as it is in Eltii^tish. Not, the Lord God, as he is usually 
called, but, tJie Lord thv God. But it would have been still more 
correct to have said. Jehovah thy God, instead of. the Lord thy God. 



54 HOR^ SABBATIC.^. 

15. Ill this place, where it means to describe that the 
seventh day is to be a day of rest, it says, a Sabbath : 
but where it has reference to what had passed before, viz. 
to its previous institution, it says, the Sabbath. This is 
all consistent with the arguments of the gentlemen 
before referred to. When the text is correctly trans- 
lated, their arguments are in fact decisively against 
themselves. * 

16. Again, the Sabbath is ordained, in the thirty-first 

chapter of Exodus and fourteenth verse ; and it is here 

again expressly limited to the children of Israel, and 

declared to be for a sign of the covenant. God says, it 

is holy ten to you ^ not unto all the world. Again, he sa}'S, 

Wherefore the children of Israel (not all mankind) shall 
keep, &c., for a perpetual covenant, &c. It is a sign betwixt 
me and the children of Israel for ever. 

17. How can more clear words of limitation be used? 
And Dr. Paley says, 

'It does not seem easy to understand how the Sabbath could 
be a sio/i between God and the people of Israel, unless the 
observance of it was peculiar to that people, and designed to 
be so,' 

*The Hebrew is remarkable for its brevity, and words are often 
obliged to be inserted to make sense in our language; in almost iu- 
numeral)le places the helping verb is obliged to be added. Thus in the 
tentli verse it is said, but the seventh day is. There is no authority in 
the Hebrew for the word is. Tiie literal translation of the words is, 
but the seventh day a Sabbath. The lielping rerb is here evidently want- 
ing ; and it must be discovered from the context what part of the 
verb nuist be used. It is submitted to the Hebrew scholar, whether 
it would not be perfectly justifiable in this case to use the words will 
be, or shall be? and write, But the seventh day shall be a (day of rest) 
Sabbath This would strengthen the argument. It is not of any con- 
sequence. But no one could say it was mistranslated, if it said, The 
seventh day shall be a Sabbath. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 55 

13. Speak thoM also unto the children of Israel, saying, 
Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep : for it is a sign between me 
and you throughout your generations ; that ye may know that 
I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. 

14. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore ; for it is holy unto 
you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: 
for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut 
off from among his people. 

15. Six days may work be done ; but in the seventh is the 
Sabbath holy to the Lord : whosoever doeth any work in the 
Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. 

16. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, 
to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a 
perpetual covenant. 

17. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for 
ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on 
the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. 

18. In the fourteenth verse God does not say that it is 
holy^ but it is //6>/)/ unto you. A clear limitation to the 
children of Israel. 

Exod. xxxiv. 28.— And he was there with the Lord forty 
days and forty nights ; he did neither eat bread nor drink 
water. And he wrote upon the tables the words oithe covenant, 
the ten commandments. 

19. How, after reading these passages, can any one 
deny, that the Decalogue was given as a sign of the 
covenant betwixt God and the Israelites? and it seems 
to follow, that when the covenant was fulfilled, the 
sign was abolished. 

20. Upon the reason assigned in Bxodus for the insti- 
tution of the Sabbath, Dr. Paley justly observes : 

"It maybe remarked, that although in Exodus the com- 
mandment is founded upon God's rest from the creation, in 



56 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

Deuteronomy the commandment is repeated with a reference 
to a different event. * Six days shalt thou labour, and do 
all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord 
thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the 
stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and 
thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember 
thou wast servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy 
God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand, and by 
a stretched- out arm : therefore the Lord thy God commanded 
thee to keep the Sabbath-day.' It is farther observable, that 
God's rest from the creation is proposed as the reason of the 
institution, even where the institution itself is spoken of as 
peculiar to the Jews. ' Wherefore the children of Israel shall 
keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their 
generations, for a perpetual covenant. // is a sign between me 
and the children of Israel for ever : for in six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth, on the seventh day he rested, and 
was refreshed.' " 

21. Ill the following places the order to keep the Sab- 
bath is repeated ; but in every one it is limited to the 
Israelites : Exod. xxxv. 2, 3. Lev. xxiii. 3, 15. xxv. 

22. The limitation of the Sabbath to the children of 
Israel, and the making it a sign of the covenant betwixt 
God and them, expressly negatives the coustrtiction put 
upon the expression in Genesis, that by it the Sabbath 
was instituted. It is making God act most absurdly, to 
make him first institute the Sabbath for the whole 
world, and then give it as a sign limited to the Israelites, 
when, from its being previously established, it could 
most clearly be no such thing. 

23. From several of these passages we see that the 
Sabbath was ordained as a sign of the covenant, made 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 57 

betwixt God and the Israelites. To be a sign was the 
reason of a Sabbath being instituted, not the resting of 
God from his work : though the selection of the seventh, 
instead of the third or fourth or other day of the week, 
was made to remind the Israelites of that event. As we 
have seen in Kxodus, that it was given as a sign of the 
covenant, so it was understood by Ezekiel, who says, 

10. Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of 
Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness : 

11. And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my 
judgments, which, if a man do, he shall even live in them. 

12. Moreover also, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign 
between me and them, that they might know that I am the 
Lord that sanctified them. — Ezek. xx. 10-12. 

24. On this Dr. Paley says : Here the Sabbath is 
plainly spoken of 2.S given; and what else can that mean, 
but SiS first instituted in the wilderness? 

25. The Prophet Nehemiah also expressly declares, 
that the Sabbath was first made known to them, or 
instituted on their exod from Egypt. He says, ix. 13. 

13. Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest 
with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and 
true laws, good statutes and commandments : 

14. And madest known unto them, thy holy Sabbath, and 
commandest them precepts, &c. 

26. How could it be said that he made known to them 
the Sabbath there, if it were known to them before? 
The language of Scripture must not be so wrested, from 
its plain obvious signification, to gratify prejudice, or 
serve particular theories. 



58 HOR^ SABBATIC^©. 

27. When God fixed the seventh day for the Sabbath 
with Moses, he chose the seventh to commemorate the 
finishing of the creation. In the same way afterward we 
shall find that, when Constantine wished to fix upon one 
day, to be set apart for divine worship, he chose the first 
to commemorate the day of the resurrection. But neither 
the Sabbath nor the Sunday as a holy day was established 
till long after the events, in honor of which they were 
fixed upon, had been passed. 

28. But the observance of the seventh day of the week 
as a Sabbath, is only a small part of the Sabbatical law.* 

* It is curious to observe liow some persons can make difficulties in 
dispensing with the words of the law, when thereby they gratify 
their passions, their prejudices, or their interest ; and how easily in 
other cases they can dispense with them, or, rather say, set them at 
defiance. They say, the law of the Sabbath cannot be abolished, 
because it was given by God before the Israelites existed, and there- 
fore is binding on all mankind, and not on the Israelites only. If this 
argument be good in one case, it is good in every other similar case. 
In the fourth verse of the ninth chapter of Genesis, it is said, 

4. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. This was 
said to ISioah. 

This is confirmed in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus, where it 
is said, 

10. And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the stratig-ers that sojourn 
among you, that eateth any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul 
that eateth blood, and will cut him ofE from among his people. 

In the following verses, to the end of the fifteenth, this order is 
several times repeated, including stranger's ; and in Deuteronomy xii. 
16, it is again repeated. 

16. Only ye shall not eat the blood ; ye shall pour it out upon the earth as water. 

And in Acts, when all the other laws of Moses are expressly abolish- 
ed, this is excepted by name. And yet Christians of every denomin- 
ation eat blood and animals strangled every day. 

What does all this prove? It proves that, generally, reason has 
nothing to do with religion. And that men are of that religion, which 
their priest and their nurse happen accidentally to profess. This 
observation will offend many persons ; but it is, notwithstanding, 
perfectly true. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 59 

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus a Sabbatical year 
is ordained : how absurd to take one part of the law re- 
lating to Sabbaths and not the other ! If a Sabbath be 
kept because it is ordained by God ; consistently, one 
Sabbath must be kept as well as the other. 

29. The Sabbath, we have seen, was given as a sign 
of a covenant betwixt God and the Jews, which covenant 
was expressly abolished by the coming of Jesus Christ ; 
then it necessarily follows, that the sign of the covenant 
should no longer be observed. 

30. If a Sabbath be kept, because it was ordained by 
God previously to the time of Jesus, it must be kept as 
he ordained it ; and how he ordained it we can only 
know from the books and the practice of the Jews. 

31. They were to do no work on that day, not even to 
light a fire ; no victuals could be dressed, or even put on 
or taken off the table on that day : the candle was 
lighted before the day began ; and if it went out, it could 
not be lighted again ; and if a draught of water was 
wanted, it could not be fetched. 

32. It has been observed to me, that it appears from 
Acts xiii. 42. xvi. 13. xviii. 4. that the primitive Chris- 
tians did not relax in their observance of the Sabbath. 
True ; nor did they relax in the observance of any other 
part of the Jewish law for some years. They certainly 
kept the Sabbath until it, with all other Jewish rites, 
was declared to be abolished by the Apostles assembled 
at Jerusalem. They might meet on the Sunday, as 
Christians who are devout at this day have prayers in 
their houses morning and evening, or fast on Fridays 



6o HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

and Saturdays. They assembled also in the evening to 
celebrate their love-feasts, and again to sing hymns 
before day-light. If these times were not chosen in 
order that the day might be given to worldly duties; 
pray let any divine tell what they were selected for? 

33. It cannot be said that they assembled at those 
times to avoid persecution ; for they must then all have 
been in the state of "lapsed;" that is, of those who had 
denied their Saviour, or refused the honors of martyrdom, 
and were therefore excommunicated. It is well known 
that a great feud arose in the church, respecting the read- 
mission into it of those who had withdrawn from perse- 
cution. Some refusing to admit them on any terms ; 
and others being willing to receive them again after 
severe penance. So far from attempting to avoid the 
honors of martyrdom, by secreting themselves ; it is well 
known that these honors were sought for by Christians 
with eagerness : — Vid. Pliny's Letters to Trajan. It has 
been said that they fled to the catacombs to conceal the 
rites of their religion, and to avoid persecution. This 
surely was a most dangerous expedient ; for as there 
was only one road into them, by closing it, their 
enemies might have destroyed them with the greatest 
facility. 

34. The truth of the matter was this — they frequented 
the catacombs to celebrate there the services to the dead ; 
as they were afterward celebrated in the crypts under 
the choirs of our ancient cathedrals : for which purpose 
these crypts were beautifully ornamented, as may still be 
seen in the cathedral at Canterbury. The Council of 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 6l 

Elvira, by one of its canons, forbid the use of candles in 
the catacombs, in the celebration of the services for the 
dead ; for this wise reason, 

* That they might not disturb the souls of the deceased.' 

35. The assembling in the evening and early in the 
morning, was evidently done to leave to slaves, servants, 
tradesmen, and all others, the means of pursuing their 
usual avocations during the remainder of the day. 

36. If it be clearly shown, by quotations and fair argu- 
ment, that the Sabbath was abolished by the New Testa- 
ment, it is not of much consequence, what the persons 
called the Fathers of the church say upon the subject ; 
or what was their practice : we have as much right to 
judge for ourselves as they had. But it may be said, 
that they may have adopted a practice from the Apostles, 
as they lived so near them. Then we will enquire what 
was their practice and opinions. 

37. The works of the apostolic fathers, the apostolical 
constitutions, and indeed all the works of the ancient 
fathers of the church before Justin Martyr, are allowed, 
by the first divines and bishops of the present day, to be 
forgeries ; therefore, though their works contain passages 
favorable to the argument, they will not be used. 

38. It cannot be denied, that Justin Martyr must have 
known perfectly well, what was the doctrine of the early 
Christians upon this subject. He is the very first of the 
Christian fathers of whom we have any entire works, 
whose genuineness is not disputed. In his dialogue 
with Trypho the Jew, he says : 



62 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

'The new law will have you keep a perpetual Sabbath; and 
you, when you have passed one day in idleness, think you are 
religious, not knowing why that was commanded you. The 
Lord our God is not pleased with such things as these. If any 
among you is guilty of perjury or fraud, let him cease from these 
crimes ; if he is an adulterer, let him repent, and he will have 
kept the kind of Sabbath pleasing to God.' Again : — 'Do you 
see that the elements are never idle nor keep a Sabbath ? Con- 
tinue as you were created. For if there was no need of circum- 
cision before Abraham, nor of the observation of the Sabbaths, 
diwd festivals, and oblations before Moses, neither now likewise 
is there any need of them after Jesus Christ, &c. Tell me why 
did not God teach those to perform such things, who preceded 
Moses and Abraham, just men, of great renown, and who were 
well-pleasing to him, though they neither were circumcised nor 
observed Sabbaths?' Again: — 'As therefore circumcision 
began from Abraham, and the Sabbath, sacrifices, and oblations 
from Moses; which it has been shown were ordained on 
account of your nation's hardness of heart, so, according to the 
council of the fathers, they were to end in Jesus Christ the Son 
of God.' 

39. Similar passages might be selected from Irenaeus 
and Tertullian, intending to prove that the Sabbath was 
a special ordinance confined to the Jews, as a sign of a 
covenant betwixt God and them. 

40. That the Christians assembled on the Sunday in 
the time of Justin Martyr, one hundred and fifty years 
after the birth of Jesus, for the purpose of divine worship, 
cannot be denied, if it were desired so to do, as the 
following curious passage proves. But it was not com- 
pulsory, nor esteemed a sin to neglect it, or do any 
ordinary business on that day. 

41. The followinr;- is a copy of Section 89, of Justin's 
Apology : 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 63 

* Upon Sunday we all assemble, that being the first day in 
which God set himself to work upon the dark void, in order to 
make the world, and in which Jesus Christ our Saviour rose 
again from the dead : for the day before Saturday, he was 
crucified; and the day after, which is Sunday, he appeared to 
his Apostles and disciples, and taught them what I have now 
proposed to your consideration.' 

42. It is a curiotis circumstance, that the Christians, 
according to Justin, did not keep the Sunday, because 
God had ended his work, but because he had begun it, 
on that day. 

43. In the passage here cited, Justin is giving the 
reasons why the Christians observed the Sunday. He 
was one of the most celebrated of the early Christian 
martyrs. We are told that he was a heathen philoso- 
pher, converted to Christianity. This passage is from a 
well-known apology, written in order to convert the 
Kmperor Antoninus Pius. It is not possible to believe, 
that if the observance of Sunda}^ had been of divine or 
apostolical appointment, he would not here have stated it. 
In other parts of his works he quotes the authority of the 
Apostles for the doctrines which he teaches. If it had 
been considered by the Christians in his day as a divine 
ordinance, in lieu of the old Sabbath, we should here 
most certainly have been informed of it. It was evidently 
a municipal or fiscal regulation, a part of their discipline 
established by themselves, and nothing more ; and his 
authority, the best and earliest in the Christian church, 
decides the question beyond dispute. 

44. The earliest of the Christians, who kept the 
Sunday, always kept it as a festival with joy and glad- 



64 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

iiess, to celebrate the glorious resurrection of their 
Saviour. Tertullian declares it unlawful to fast on a 
Sunday, or to worship on the knees^ on that day. The 
sixty-sixth of the apostolical canons declares, that if an 
ecclesiastic should fast on a Sunday, he should be 
deposed ; and if a layman should do it, he should be 
excommunicated. Mr. Whiston thought with the Catho- 
lics, that these canons were not forgeries : but whether 
forgeries or not, they show all they are quoted for ; 
namely, the opinion of Christians in a very early day. 
St. Augustinef condemns fasting on a Sunday, for the 
reason given above ; namely, because it was a day of joy 
and gladness. — Bp. 86. ad Casulan. 

45. It may be doubtful what authority the Protestants 
of this day may choose to allow to the canons of the 
Council of Nice ; but as they adopt the Nicene Creed, 
they will not deny that they are entitled to some respect 
in the decision of the question. Of what was the general 
opinion of the Church in their day, in such cases as this 
opinion shall be clearly stated by them. The following 
is an extract from the i6th canon : 

Caput 16. de Adoratione seu Genuflexione. 
.... in Sanctis dominicis diebus sacrisque aliis solennitatibus 
nullae fiant genufiexiones, quia tota Sancta Ecclesia in hisce 
laetatur, et exultat diebus, genufiexiones autem afflictionis 
tristitiae, timoris et moeroris tessara sunt et signum, ideo 
omittendae sunt diebus festis, ac maxime die resurrectionis 
Domini nostri Jesu Christi a fnortuis. Hoc autem caput sine 

*Die dominica jejunare nefas ducimus, vel de genicolis adorare. 
Tertul. De Cor. cap. 3. 

t Called by Dr, Lardner, the glory of Africa. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 65 

anathemate est. Hist. Philip. Labbei cone. Nic. ad Can. 16. 
A. D. 325. Pap. Silvester, i. 

46. In the Sacrosancta Concilia Philip. Labbei et Gabr. 
Cossartii, torn. 2. p. 385, the Sabbatarians are placed the 
first amongst seventy-seven named sects : 

It is said, ' Rerum obliti erant isti Dei vocem per Isaiam 
prophetam ita contestantem : Odio habuit anima mea Sabbata 
vestra, et neomenias vestras, et facta sunt mihi gravia.' 

47. The Manicheans and Marcionites, sects of heretics 
to whom the modern Puritans or Evangelical Christians 
probably would not like to be compared, kept the Sunday 
as a day of humiliation. This gave great scandal to the 
orthodox of that day, and to most, if not all, other 
heretics. Pope Leo the First, in his fifteenth Epistle to 
Turibius, says, "The Manicheans have been convicted 
in the examination which we have made, of passing the 
Sunday, which is consecrated to the resurrection of our 
Lord, in mortification and fasting." 

48. By a decree of the Council of Gangres in Paphla- 
gonia, about the year 357, all those are anathematized 
who, from devotion and mortification,* pass the Sunday 
in fasting. — See Pagi. Crit. Bar. An. 357 and 360. 
Though Protestants may despise the authority of these 
ancient Popes and Councils, yet they cannot deny, that 
they prove what were the early opinions of the Church, 
which is all they are quoted for. 

49. God forbid, that the characters of Constantine 
and Eusebius should be held up as examples worthy of 

*C )noil. Gang. Canon, xviii. /}idvofj.c^ofi£vrjv uaKrjaiv. 



66 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

imitation ; but yet it cannot be denied, that the edict of 
the former, by which the observation of Sunday as a day 
of rest was first ordained by law, and made imperative on 
Christians, bespeaks in every part of it sound discretion. 
His edict says, 

* Let all judges and towns-people, and the occupations of all 
trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun. But let those who 
are situated in the country, freely and at full Hberty, attend to 
the business of agriculture; because it often happens, that no 
other day is so fit for sowing corn, or planting vines, lest the 
critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities 
granted them by the providence of Heaven.'* 

50. When Constantine was passing this law, with 
Busebius and the clergy of his newly-established re- 
ligion to assist and advise him, can it be believed, that 
he would not have stated, that it was done in obedience 
to the command of God, as handed down by tradition, or 
by writing, if such it had been considered ? The con- 
trary cannot be believed, whether he be considered as a 
hypocrite, or a devotee. 

51. Though Dr. Paley considers the Sabbath to be 
abolished, he thinks that, 

* The as s e?7ib li7ig u^on the first day of the week for the pur- 
pose of public worship and religious instruction, is a law of 
Christianity of divine appointment:' 

but he goes on to qualify this by adding, 

* Omnes judices urbana3que plebes et cunctarum artium otiicia 
venerabili die soils qiilescant. Kuri tamen poslti agroruni culturaj 
llbere licenterque inserviant, quoiilam frequenter evenlt, ut non aptlus 
alio die frumenta sulcis aut vinea? scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione 
momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa. Dat. Nonis 
Mart. Crispo 11. et Constantino 11. Conss. Corp. Jur. Civ, Codicis, lib. 
3. tit. 12. 



HOR.E SABBATIC^. 6^ 

* The resting on that day from our employments, longer than 
we are detained from them by attendance upon these assem- 
blies, Is to Christians an ordinance oi human instiiution' 

52. Now the question, whether the assembling for 
public worship on the Sunday differently from any other 
day, be of human or divine appointment, has nothing to 
do with the appointment of divine worship generally^ 
but only to its being fixed to that particular tinie. His 
inference is merely drawn from the apparent assembling 
of the Apostles and disciples on the first day of the week, 
as described in the three places quoted in the first Part ; 
whence he infers that there must have been some appoint- 
ment by divine authority unknown to us. This it has 
been shown that not one of the texts will warrant. 
Granting, for the sake of argument, that they were 
assembled all the three times alluded to by previous 
appointment, and not by accident, and that this was 
fixed to the first day of the week, the fair inference is, 
that the fixing of this day was not of divine, but of 
human invention only : for it cannot be believed, that 
an ordinance of stich great importance would not have 
been stated to be of divine authority, if it had been so 
considered. It is quite absurd to suppose afterward, 
when great and even bloody feuds were taking place, 
respecting the observance of the Sabbath on the seventh 
day, that not one of the Fathers or parties should have 
stated, that the Apostles had established the observance 
of the Sunday instead of it. Nothing could have been 
more favorable to the anti-sabbatarians ; and in no other 
way can their silence be accounted for, than by the sup- 



68 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

position, that they did not allege this, because the falsity 
of their allegation would have been notorious. If the 
case had been doubtful even, they would have availed 
themselves of it, as far as was in their power. 

53. Some persons have imagined, that the day of the 
Sun, dies Dominica, the first day of the week, the day 
peculiarly dedicated to the Sun by the heathens, was 
called the Lord's-day, out of honor to Jesus Christ. And 
Dr. Priestley had this idea : he says, 

* That before the death of John, it had obtained the epithet 
of the Lord's-day. As John did nothing more than use the 
epithet xLiptax>i, to distinguish the day he alluded to, and wrote 
for the use of Christians in general, of that and all succeeding 
ages, it is evident, that he knew they wanted no other mark to 
discover what day he meant, and that, therefore, it was a name 
universally given to the first day at that time by Christians.' 

54. No doubt he knew that the Christians would 
understand him, and the Doctor might have added, 
the heathens also. For it was known by this name 
before Jesus was born, in honor of the Sun, who was 
always called Dominus Sol, and the day, dies Dominica. 
— See Dupuis sur tons les cultes, vol. 3. p. 41. ed. 4to. 
The Persians called their God Mithra always the I^ord 
Mithra ; but it is well known, that Mithra was nothing 
but the Sun. Dr. Paley has fallen into the same mistake 
with Dr. Priestley. 

55. The Syrians gave to the Sun the epithet of Adonis, 
or lyord. Adon is yet the word for I^ord in the Welsh 
Celtic language. Porphyry, in a prayer which he ad- 
dresses to the Sun, calls him Dominus Sol. And in the 



HOR.^ SABBATIC^. 69 

consecration of the seven days of the week to the different 
planets, the day of the Sun is called the day of the Lord 
Sol, or dies Dominica ; when the others are called only 
by their names, as dies Martis, &c. — See Porphyry, de 
Abstinentia, 1. 4. Dupuis, v. 3. p. 41 — 55. ed. 4to. 
Every one of the ancient nations gave the Sun the 
epithet of Lord or Master, or some title equivalent to it, 
as Kupcnc; in Greek, Dominus in Latin. As the Sun was 
called Dominus, the Moon or Isis was called Domina. 
On the side of a church in Bologna, formerly a temple, 
the following inscription still remains : Dominse Isidi 
Victrici. 

56. The multiplication, by the laws of society, of 
artificial offences, which are in themselves no crimes, 
such as those created by the excise laws, and the 
prohibition of innocent amusements on the Sunday, 
have a very strong tendency to corrupt the public 
morals. 

57. To convert an act pleasurable and agreeable to the 
youthful mind, and innocent in its own nature, such as 
a game of cricket, on a Sunday evening, into a crime, is 
to treat the Lord's-prayer with contempt. It is to lead 
into temptation the uncorrupted ; who, by the nature of 
their youth, are the most open to it. Another objection 
arises, from the circumstance that the laboring orders 
of mankind, who are obliged to work all the six days of 
the week to earn their subsistence, are consequently 
mucb more exposed to temptation than the higher orders, 
to whom every day is a Sabbath, or day of rest ; and 
who increase the temptation to the others to break it, by 



JO HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

breaking it with impunity themselves whenever they 
think proper. 

58. The temptation is also much greater to the laborer, 
who works all the other six days, than to the rich man, 
to whom they are all Sabbaths or da}'S of rest. The rich 
man, who has never worked, can scarcely form an idea 
of the pleasure of the Sabbath to the poor laborer. 

59. In sermons, and in books of different kinds, put 
into the hands of young and ignorant persons, Sabbath- 
breaking is constantly held up as a most heinous and 
terrible sin ; and when persons thus taught to consider it 
as a sin of magnitude, equal to the commission of real 
crimes, are once tempted to a commission of the offence, 
they become hardened. An effect is produced upon their 
minds, very different from what it would be if they were 
merely told that Sabbath-breaking was wrong, because 
it was a breach of a municipal regulation, of little conse- 
quence : and that if they persisted in it, they should be 
made to pay the penalty of the law, three shillings and 
four pence. 

60. It is the very acme of impolicy, and has the 
strongest tendency to corrupt the morals of a people, 
to teach them that trifling offences, which from any 
peculiar circumstance they are constantly exposed to 
daily and almost insuperable temptation to commit, are 
of a heinous nature. The mind by repeatedly commit- 
ting a minor offence, colored to it as an atrocious act, 
becomes hardened and prepared by a species of appren- 
ticeship for the commission of the worst crimes. Hence 
it is we constantly find culprits at the gallows charging 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 71 

the sill of Sabbath-breaking, as they call it, with the 
origin of their abandoned course of life ; and there can 
be no doubt that they are correct in so doing. — By con- 
sidering the Sabbath or day of rest in the point of view 
in which it has been placed, merely as a municipal regu- 
lation, it is evident that the occasional breach of it will 
not be attended with the same pernicious consequences 
as attend the breach of it when considered as a divine 
ordinance. The persons who sincerely appropriate the 
whole day to the observance of religious duties, no doubt 
will be more pious than those who appropriate only part 
of it: as those are more pious, who pray morning and 
night, than those who pray once a day. But the minds 
of those who, either by business or pleasure, are induced 
to neglect it, will not be hardened in vice : and a person 
of good common sense will know, that if he perform the 
duties of prayer and thanksgiving on some other day, 
when he has been induced to neglect them on the day 
fixed by the law of the land, the offence, further than 
merely the breach of a trifling municipal regulation, 
valued at 3.$'. ^d.^ will be in a great measure atoned for. 

61. If the Sunday be considered as a divinely appointed 
substitute for the Jewish Sabbath, the consequence fol- 
lows, that it must, or at least ought, if consistency be 
attended to, to be kept in every respect as the Jewish 
Sabbath was ordained to be kept. In tlit multifarious 
and complicated concerns of a great commercial nation, 
it is not possible to keep it as strictly as ordained, by the 
letter of the old law. Hence it must be violated every 
day, both by governments and individuals. In conse- 



72 HOR^ SABBATIC>€. 

quence of considering this institution of divine appoint- 
ment, many persons of the best dispositions are placed 
almost daily in situations the most painful. The dis- 
tressing nature of these situations evidently proceeds 
from the mistaken idea that it is of divine, and not of 
human, appointment. If it be the former, it evidently 
admits of no modification : but if it be only the latter, it 
as evidently may be varied, or even dispensed with, as 
circumstances require. Being ordained to be kept by 
the magistrate, it is wrong not to keep it ; but the 
offence in the former case is far greater than in the 
latter. 

62. In the neighborhood of the author, an honest, 
respectable, industrious man lived at an inn as hostler, 
and after some time his master obtained a share in a 
mail coach, and he had the horses to prepare and take 
care of. It is evident that this man must break the 
Sabbath every Sunday, or abandon the situation by 
which he maintained his family in comfort ; a situation 
for which he was much better qualified than for any 
other. He applied to the author for advice, having 
read his Bible, and wishing to do his duty ; but not 
wishing to ruin himself, and send his wife and children 
to the parish. He was recommended to go to his parish 
priest. What passed is unknown to the author, except 
that he returned with a perfect contempt for the wretched 
sophistry of his ghostly adviser, who happened to be one 
of the Evangelical Christians, as they call themselves. 
He was a man of strong common sense ; it was not likely 
that he should do otherwise. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 73 

63. Very good men amongst both the French and 
English have wished the observance of the Sunday to be 
abolished. But surely they have reasoned very incor- 
rectly. Some have said that it is unwise to lose one 
seventh part of the labor of the industrious classes of 
mankind, and that on this account it would conduce 
greatly to the riches of a state to abolish it. This is the 
argument of the West India planter, and no doubt is true. 
It is the reason why postmasters never wish to have their 
horses stand still in the stable ; and no doubt it is true : 
but it requires no comment. 

64. Others have said, it is a great hardship, to deprive 
a poor man of the produce of the seventh part of his 
voluntary labor, for the support of his family. This is 
no doubt true also, if the argument be applied to one 
family only ; but if it be applied to a whole nation, 
nothing can be more untrue. And nothing is more easy 
than to show, that if in a whole nation the observance 
of Sunday were to be abolished, though the rich would 
be greatly benefited, no poor man would be bettered in 
point of pecuniary concerns to the amount of a single 
farthing, and in many respects the comforts and enjoy- 
ments of the poor would be very greatly abridged.* 
Some persons have maintained that a day of rest is a 
day of idleness and dissipation, alike destructive to the 
purses and the morals of the industrious part of the 
community. This is to reason against the use, from the 
abuse of a thing. It only shows the necessity of proper 

*See Edinburgh Eeview, No. LXVII. p. 33. 



74 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

regulations. A person may as well argue against tlie 
planting of vines or barley, because people get drunk. 

65. As a human ordinance, nothing can be more wise 
than the observance of a periodical day of devotion, rest, 
and recreation ; but, as a Sabbath, in the strict sense of 
the Jews and Calvinists, nothing can be well more 
pernicious. The practice of the Roman Catholics seems 
to be not only the most consistent with Scripture, but 
the most rational. After their devotions are over, they 
have no scruple to join in any innocent recreation and 
amusement. How different this is to the conduct of our 
modern Pharisees ! Many persons will not on any 
account read a newspaper on a Sunday, or allow a little 
music in their house on that day on any consideration. 
An instance is known to the author, where a Scotchman 
informed a young man, visiting at his house, that it was 
not usual with them to laugh on the lyord's day, and he 
hoped he would abstain from it. All this arises from 
the mistaken idea, that the observance of the Lord's day 
is a renewal of the Jewish Sabbath. 

66. The author feels a pleasure in stating, that the 
old law of England, before its late corruption by the 
modern Pharisees, was perfectly accordant with his view 
of the subject. The Sunday is classed amongst the 
festivals^ not the fasts. All works of necessity were 
permitted, and only such as were not necessary were 
forbidden ; vid. Act of Charles 2d, c. 2. s. 7 : and by 
King James's Book of Sports, such amusements were 
allowed as at that time were thought necessary and 
innocent ; such as dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 75 

May Games, Whitsoii ales, morris dances, a species of 
dramatic entertainment, &c. : vid. Dalton, c. 46. It is 
very much to be desired that they were re-enacted, that 
the people might be encouraged after divine service to 
apply to cheerful amusements, instead of the ale-house, 
or v^hat is as bad, the petty conventicles of morose 
Calvinistic fanatics,* who fancy they have a call to 
preach up, what in their hands is nothing better than a 
prava zTnmodica et exitiabilis supers titto^'\ to their gaping 
auditors, almost as ignorant as themselves, for which 
there is no reinedy but silent contempt. 

67. The following injunctions were published by Queen 
Elizabeth and Edward the Sixth ; and as no doubt they 
speak the opinions of the leading reformers of that day, 
they are curious, and deserving of respect. 

* AH parsons, vicars and curates shall teach and declare unto 
the people, that they may with a safe and quiet conscience, 
after their common prayer in time of harvest, labor upon the 
holy and festival days, and save that thing which God hath 
sent. And j"f for any scrupulosity or grudge of conscience they 
shall abstain from working upon those days, that then they 
shall grievously offend and displease God.' 

68. It is necessary to observe that festival days, ac- 
cording to act of parliament, include all Sundays. It is 
a thing very much to be desired, that the generality of 
persons engaged in business would be content with the 

* Calvin, the founder of the doctrine of these people, who burnt 
Servetus for differing in opinion with him, declared he believed in 
w^hat he taught, quia incredihile efit, because it /s incredible. He was quite 
right ; it is the only ground on which it can be believed, because it is 
contrary to tl^ moral attributes of God. 

t Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius. 



"jG HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

religion of their ancestors, at least until they can pro- 
duce some good reasons for making a change ; leaving 
the task of expounding difficult texts of the Bible to the 
divines and polemics. 

69. A learned traveller, speaking of France, says, 

" Methodists and enthusiasts there are none; and nothing 
more astonishes a Frenchman than to describe the ascendancy 
of Methodism in England, the death-like gloom of an English 
Sunday, and the vagaries of the jumpers and other such 
fanatics, who disgrace the intelligence of the British people. 
It was repeated to me at least fifty times in reply to my ob- 
servations — 'though men are forbidden to work on a Sunday, 
they are not forbidden to play;' 'and if,' said a French priest 
to me, 'you would keep Sunday out of respect to our Lord's 
ascension, instead of keeping the Sabbath, surely that ascension 
is a subject rather of gaiety than sadness." 

70. When a Frenchman has performed the devotional 
exercises required by his religion, he does not think 
there is any thing wrong in doing such occasional labor 
or work on a Sunday, as may offer itself or be required. 
He does not consider that he is acting against the word 
of God ; he is only giving up part of his own enjoyment, 
the recreation which is allowed to him : and if he have 
a family, he thinks he is making a meritorious sacrifice, 
rather than otherwise. And this is perfectly consistent 
with the idea of it, as a day of festivity ordained by the 
church. 

71. It has been said that Jesus wept, but never 
laughed ; but for all this, he had no objection to cheer- 
ful society, and that to a pretty liberal extent, or he 
would not by a miracle, at Cana in Galilee, have pro- 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. ^'] 

vided more wine, when the guests had already taken as 
much as the host had thought proper to provide for 
them. Nor would he have attended a feast on the Sab- 
bath-day, as described in Luke xiv. 

72. The people of Geneva appear to keep the Sunday 
more correctly than any other persons. During divine 
service all the wine-houses, shops, &c., are closed, and 
the gates of the town opened to none but surgeons and 
accoucheurs, except some very urgent case is made out 
to the satisfaction of the magistrate. The labors of 
husbandry are permitted in harvest, and at other times, 
when the magistrate gives permission for them, and 
thinks it proper. After the day's devotion is over, the 
evening is spent at dramatic entertainments, or in visit- 
ing, dancing, playing at athletic games, such as foot- 
ball, &c. 

73. It is constantly the boast of Christians, that their 
religion is a religion of cheerfulness, in opposition to 
objectors, who have charged it with being the contrary. 
Surely the objection must be considerably strengthened 
by the conversion of fifty-two days (one-seventh of the 
whole year) from days of festivity into days of mourning 
and sadness. Though the fanatic may approve this 
conversion, the philosophic Christian, the real philan- 
thropist, must view it with sorrow and regret. 

74. Thus, when the day is considered as it ought to 
be, merely as a human ordinance, it can be regulated 
without difficulty, by the governors of states, as is most 
suitable to times and circumstances. But if it be con- 
sidered as a divine command, it is evidently out of their 



78 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

reach or control. However pernicious an effect may 
arise, they have no means to obviate it, without what 
ought never to be seen — the government intentionally 
violating the laws which it tells its people are sacred, 
and cannot be violated without the commission of a great 
sin. — The governors despatching mail-coaches in all 
directions, and fining poor men for being shaved before 
they go to church, on a Sunday morning.* 

75. It will now probably be demanded, whether a 
wish is entertained to abolish the observance of the 
Sunday or not : to which the reply is, certainly not. 
The Jewish Sabbath was abolished by Jesus ; and if it 
were in the power of the Author, it should not be re- 
stored by him. But the question is not about the seventh 
day of the week, but about the Sunday, the first ; and 
concerning the latter, the question is, not whether it is 
to be abolished, but whether it is to be kept, subject to 
the regulation of the government, as a fast or a feast — 
whether it is to be made for man, or man is to be made 
for it : — whether, with the modern Pharisees, it is to be 
kept like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, or, with 
Bishop Cranmer, Edward the Sixth, Elizabeth, and all 
our early reformers, it is to be kept like Easter Sunday 
and Christmas-day ; and it may be added also, with all 

* Strain not your scythe, suppressors of our vice, 
Reforming saints ! too delicately nice ! 
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, 
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ; 
And beer undrawn and beards unniown display 
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day. 

Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 



HOR^ SABBATIC^. 79 

the Catholic and Greek Christians, and many of the 
followers of Luther and Calvin, at Geneva, and several 
parts of Germany, beyond all comparison much the 
greater part of the Christian world. 

76. If it were observed to our little, though increasing 
junto of Puritans, that it is incumbent upon them to pay 
some attention to the great majority of the Christian 
world, who entertain an opinion on this subject different 
from them, and that they ought not to be too confident 
in their own judgment, but to recollect that it does not 
become them in fact, though perhaps not in name, to 
assume to themselves that infallibility which they deny 
to the united church of Christ with the Pope at its head ; 
they would probably reply, that they have a right to 
judge for themselves, that they will not be controlled 
by Antichrist, or the scarlet whore of Babylon. With 
persons who can make this answer, the author declines 
all discussion; he writes not for them, but for persons 
who, having understandings, make use of them : and to 
these persons he observes, that he does not wish their 
opinions to be controlled by any authority ; but he begs 
them to recollect the beautiful story of the cameleon — 
that others can see as well as themselves ; and that when 
a great majority of the Christian world is against them, 
it is possible that they may be in error ; and that there- 
fore it is incumbent upon them to free their minds from 
passion or prejudice as much as possible, in the considera- 
tion of this very important subject. That on the de- 
cision respecting it depends the question, whether the 
Christian religion is to be a system .of cheerfulness, of 



80 HOR^ SABBATIC^. 

happiness, and of joy, or of weeping, wailing and gnash- 
ing of teeth. 

']^. It is unnecessary to add any thing more upon this 
subject. It has been shown, that the intention of the 
writer of the first chapter of Genesis, and of the remainder 
of the Pentateuch was, to teach that the institution of 
the Sabbath was expressly limited to the children of 
Israel ; that it was a sign of the covenant betwixt them 
and God ; and that the sign and the covenant went 
together. It has been shown, that it was abolished by 
Jesus, when he did not enumerate the Sabbath amongst 
the commandments which he ordered to be retained, and 
by his conduct in breaking it on various occasions. It 
has been shown, that it was abolished at the first council 
of the Church, held by the Apostles at Jerusalem ; and 
that St. Paul has in the clearest terms, and repeatedly, 
expressed his disapprobation, not only of Sabbaths, but 
of the compulsory keeping of set-days as an ordinance of 
religion. Not a single passage can be produced from the 
Gospels or Epistles, in approbation of the continuation 
of the Sabbath, or of the substitution of any day in its 
place. Nor can it be shown, that the early Christians 
considered the observance of Sunday as the renewal of 
the Jewish Sabbath, or in any sense as an institution of 
divine appointment ; and therefore, from a careful con- 
sideration of the whole argument, and of all the circum- 
stances relating to it — its antiquity — its utility when 
not abused — and the many comforts which it is calcu- 
lated to produce to the poor and working-classes of man- 
kind, it may be concluded, that the observance of Sunday 



HOR.^ SABBATIC^. 8l 

is a wise and benevolent hiunan^ bnt not divine ordinance ; 
a festival, which it is on every account proper and ex- 
pedient to support, in such due bounds as will make it 
most conducive to the welfare of society. That with 
Christians it ought not to be a day of penance and humil- 
iation, but of happiness, joy, and thanksgiving, as it was 
established by Edward the Sixth at the Reformation ; a 
festival, to celebrate the glorious resurrection of their 
Saviour to life and immortality. 

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet : 
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to 
thy father which is in secret ; and thy father, 
which seest in secret, shall reward thee 

OPENLY. * 

* One of the quotations from the Gospel of Luke is not taken from 
the orthodox version. The author being in the habit of consulting 
different versions, copied it from the wrong version by mistake, and 
did not discover it till the sheet v^as printed off. It is of no conse- 
quence whatever to the argument ; and he only notes it that he may 
not give a handle to ill temper, to accuse him of misquotation. 



FINIS. 



^Iie Si^^i'i^I Classits, (3°. t.) 




History of Christianity 

Comprising all that relates to the Christian religion in " The History of the Dec lint 
and Fall of the Roman Empire,^' and, also, 

•^A VIN Die AXION}^ 

(never before published in tliis country,) 

of "Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters," by 

EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. 

With a Preface, Life of the Author, and Notes by Peter Eckler ; also. Variorum 
Notes by Guizot, Wenck, Milivian, "an English Churchman," and 

other scholars. 

One vol., Post 8vo, 864 pages, with Portrait of Gibbon and numerous Engravings of 
mythological divinities. Ex. vellum cloth, $2.00; half calf, $4.00. 



" This important work contams Gibbon's complete Theological writings, separate from his 
historical and miscellaneous works, showing when, where, and hmu Christianity originated ; 
who were its founders ; and what were the sentiments, character, manners, numbers and con- 
dition of the primitive Christians. What has been said by Christians in regard to the Origin 
of Christianity Is reprinted from the valuable notes of Dean Milman, Wenck, Guizot, and other 
eminent Christian historians who have edited Gibbon's works: and the pious but scholarly 
remarks of the learned editor of Bohn's edition of Gibbon are also given in full. Among the 
numerous illustrations will be found renresentations of the principal divinities of the Pagan 
mythology The sketch of the author's life adds value and interest to the book, which is not 
only well edited and printed, but substantially bound. It will be a treasure for all libraries.'- 
— The Magazine of American History. 



site Sibcrat ©lassies, (go. 2.) 




Voltaire's Romances. 

A New Edition^ Profusely Illustrated. 



"I choose that a story should be founded on probabiHty, and not always resemble a 
dream. I desire to find nothing in it trivial or extravagant ; and I desire above all, 
that under the appearance of fable, there may appear some latent truth, obvious to 
the discerning eye, though it escape the observation of the vulgar." — Voltaire. 



CONXKNTS. 



The White Bull; a Satirical Romance. 
Zadig; or Fate. An Oriental History. 
The Sage and The Atheist. 
The Princess of Babylon. 
The Man of Forty Crowns. 
The Huron ; or Pupil of Nature. 
Micromegas. a satire on mankind. 
The World as it Goes. 
The Black and The White. 
Memnon the Philosopher. 
Andre Des Touches at Siam. 



Bababec. 

The Study of Nature. 

A Conversation with a Chinese. 

Plato's Dream. 

A Pleasure in Having no Pleasure. 

An Adventure in India. 

Jeannot and Colin. 

Travels of Scarmhntado. 

The Good Bramin. 

The Two Comforters. 

Ancient Faith and Fable. 



One TOl., post 8ro, 480 pasres, mth Portrait and 82 Illustrations. Paper, $1.00; 
Extra Tcllum cloth, $1.50; half calf, $4.00. 



Voltaire's satire was as keen and fine pointed as a rapier. — Magazine of Am. History. 
\ delightful reproduction, unique and refreshing. — Boston Commonwealth. 



^Ixc :^ibcvitl ©lassies, (Sa. 3.) 




Christian Paradoxes. 

The Charaoters of a Believing CtLrlstlan in 
Paradoxes and Seeming Contiadictions. 

BY 

FRANCIS BACON, (Lord Verulam.) 



lO pages, post 8vo, with portrait. Paper cover, lo cents. 



From the doubts these Paradoxes imply, it seems reasonable to suppose that 
Bacon was of those who believe that religion should be taught in a symbolical 
and mystical language that the initiated and learned few may understand, and 
the great multitude believe ; and also that its true meaning should be veiled and 
hidden in paradoxes and parables, "that seeing they may see and not perceiv" 
MJd hearing they may hear and not understand." — Preface. 



Jlig l^ibcral Cnassics, (1^0. 6.) 




A NEW EDITION, JUST PUBLISHED, OF 



VoLNEY's Ruins 



THE LAW OF NATURE, 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

volney's answer to dr. priestly, a biographical notice 

BY COUNT DARU, AND THE ZODIACAL SIGNS AND 
CONSTELLATIONS BY THE EDITOR ; 

Also, a Map of the Astrological Heaven of the Ancients. 



Printed on heavy paper, from new plates, in large clear type, with portrait and illusv 
trations. One vol., post 8vo, 248 pages ; Paper, 50c. ; cloth, 75c. ; half-calf, I3 00. 



This is undoubtedly one of the best and most useful books ever published. It eloquently 
advocates the best interests of mankind, and clearly points out the sources of human ignor- 
ance and misery. The author is supposed to meet in the ruins of Palmyra an apparition or 
phantom, which explains the true principles of society, and the causes of both the pros- 
perity and the ruin of ancient states. A general assembly of the nations is at length 
convened, a legislative body formed, the source and origrin of religion, of government, 
and of laws discussed, and the Law of Nature— founded on justice and equity — is finally 
proclaimed to an expectant world. 

" Volney's Ruins will be read with as much interest to-day as it was a hundred years ago. 
It is a book that was bom to immortality and a hundred years to come it will be as fresh as 
it is to-day"— -BeWflrio-P/iiiosopfticai Journal. 



*ght ^iljcval Classics, ma. 5.) 




Superstition in all Ages 

OR, *'i.E: BON SENS,*' 

^By jean MESLlER,-f 

A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, 

IVAo, after a pastoral service of thirty years in France, wholly ab- 
jured religious dogmas, and asked God's pardon for having taught 
the Christian religion. He left this volume as his last Will and 
Testament to his parishioners and to the world, 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH ORIGINAL BY 

MISS ANNA KNOOP. 



Post 8to, 339 pages, with Portrait. Paper, 50 cts. ; cloth, $1.00 ; half calf, $3.00. 
The same work ia German. Cloth, $1.00. 



The work of the honest pastor is the most curious and the most powerful thing of 
the kind that the last century produced. . . Paine and Voltaire had reserves, but 
Jean Meslier had none. He keeps nothing back ; and yet, after all, the wonder is not 
that there should have been one priest who left that testimony at his death, but that all 
priests do not. — y antes Par ton. 




The social CONTRACT, 

Or PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL LAW. 
Also, A PROJECT FOR A PERPETUAL PEACE, 

BY 

Jean Jacques Rousseau, Citize7i of Geneva. 

One volume, post 8vo, 238 pages, with portrait, extra vellum cloth, 75c., paper 50c. 



The writings of Rousseau, says Thomas Paine, in his Rights of Man ^ contain 
" a loveliness of sentiment in favor of Liberty that excites respect and elevates 
the human faculties." 

" He was the most directly revolutionary of all the speculative precursors. His 
writings produced that glow of enthusiastic feeling in France, which led to the all- 
important assistance rendered by that country to the American colonists in a 
struggle so momentous for mankind. It was from his writings that the Americans 
took the ideas a?td the phrases of their great Charter. It was his work more than 
that of any other one man, that France arose from the deadly decay which laid 
hold of her whole social and political system, and found that irresistible energy 
which warded off dissolution within, and partition from without." — John Morley. 

" He could be cooped up in garrets, laughed at as a maniac, left to starve like 
a wild beast in a cage, — but he could not be hindered from setting the world on 
fire. — Thomas Carlyle. 



PROFESSION OF FAITH of the Vicar of Savoy, 

By JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, 

Also, A Search for Truth, by Olive Schreiner. 

Post 8vo, 128 pages, with portrait, Vellum Cloth 50c., paper 25c. 



*gU %xhcvrd OTIassks, (1^^. 7.) 




The Works of THOMAS PAINE. 



Life of Thomas Paine, by Editor of tlie National with Preface and Notes by 
Peter Eckler. Illustrated with views of the Old Paine Homestead and Paine 
Monument, at New Rochelle, also, portraits of Thomas Clio Rickman, Joel 
Barlow, Mary WoUstonecraft, Madame Roland, Condorcet, Brissot, and the 
most prominent of Paine's friends in Europe and America. Paper 50 cts.: clo .75 

The Agfe of Reason ; being an investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. 
A new and complete edition, from new plates and new type ; 186 pages, post 
8vo. Paper 25 cts. ; cloth 50 cts. 

Common Sense. A Revolutionary pamphlet, addressed to the Inhabitants of 
America in 1776, With an explanatory notice by an English author. Paper 15 cts. 

The Crisis and Common Sense. The Crisis, written in " the times that 
tried men's souls " during the American Revolution, was preceded by the revo- 
lutionary pamphlet Common Sense, which awakened the desire for freedom and 
independence. 300 pages, post Svo. Paper 30 cents, cloth 50 cents. 

The Rights of iVIan. Parts I and II. Being an answer to Mr. Burke's attack 
upon the French Revolution. Post Svo., 279 pages. Paper 30 cts., cloth, 50 cts. 

Paine's Complete Theological Worl<s.— Age of Reason, Examination of 
the Prophecies, etc. Illus. edition. Post Svo, 432 pp.; paper 50 cts.; cloth $1.00- 

Paine's Political Works. — Common Sense, The Crisis, Rights of Man, etc. 
Illustrated edition. Post Svo, 650 pages ; cloth $1.00 

Paine's Great Works. Popular edition. 1 vol. cloth, $3.00. 



*ghe %x\imxl O^Iassits. (Mo. 8.) 




?^mm^^^^mii?m^m' 



FORCE AND MATTER 



Principles of the Natural Order of the Universe, 

WITH A SYSTEM OF MORALITV BASED THEREON. 

BY 

Prof. I.UDWIG BUCHNER, M. D. 



A scientific and rationalistic work of great merit and ability. Translated from the 15th 

German Edition, revised and enlarged by the author, and reprinted from 

the fourth English edition. 

One volume, post 8vo, 414 pages, with portrait, vellum cloth, I1.50 ; half calf, I3.00. 



Force and Matter, 
Immortality of Matter, 
Immortality of Force, 
Infinity of Matter, 
Value of Matter, 
Motion, Form, 

Immutability of Natural 

Laws, 
Universality of Natural 

Laws, 



CO:LTa?E2:TT'S r 

The Heavens, 
Periods of the Creation 

the Earth, 
Original Generation, 
Secular Generation, 
The Fitness of Things in 

Nature, (Teleology), 
Man, 

Brain and Mind, 
Thought, 



Consciousness, 

Seat of the Soul, 

Innate Ideas, 

The Idea of God, 

Personal Continuance, 

Vital Force, 

The Soul of Brutes, 

Free Will, 

Morality, 

Concluding Observations. 



Rob't G. Ingersoll's Writings. 




ONI.Y AUTHORIZED EDITIONS. 



Ingersoll's Lectures Complete, in one Volnme: Half Morocco, 

Containing over 1,300 pages. Price, §5.00. 

**^^l^, rJ*^^™^ ^^^ Selections, in silk doth, $2.50: in half calf, $4.50; 
in full Turkey morocco, gilt, 57.50 ; in full tree calf, §9.00. 

The Gods and Other Lectures, comprising The Gods, Humboldt, 
Thomas Paine, Individuality, Heretics and Heresies. Paper 50c. ; cloth, fl. 

The Ghosts and Other Lectures, including Liberty of Man, woman, 
and Child, The Declaration of Independence, About Farming in Illinois, Speech 
Nominating James G. Blaine for Presidency in 1876, The Grant Banquet, A Tribute to 
Rev. Alex. Clarke, The Past Rises Before Me Like a Dream, and A Tribute to Ebon 
C. IngersoU. Paper, 50c. ; cloth, §L 

Some Mistakes of Moses, contents: some Mistakes of Moses, Free 
Schools, The PoliticianSj Man and Woman, The Pentateuch, Monday, Tuesday, 
Wednesday, Thursday, He Made the Stars Also, Friday, Saturday, Let Us Make Man, 
Sunday, The Necessity for a Good Memory, The Garden, The Fall, Dampness, Bac- 
chus and Babel, Faith in FUth, The Hebrews, The Plagues, The Flight, Confess 
and Avoid; Inspired Slavery, Marriage, War, Religious Liberty; Conclusion. 
Pap'^v, 50c. ; cloth, §1. 

Interviews on Talmag'e. Being six interviews with the Famous Orator 
on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, of Brooklyn, to which is added a 
Talmagian Catechism. Paper, 50c. ; cloth, $1.25 . 

In^erSOll Field Discussion. Faith or Agnosticism, i^iscusslon between 
R. G. Ingersoll and H. M Field, D. D. Paper, 50c. 

Blasphemy. Argument by R. G. Ingersoll in the Trial oi C. B. Reynolds, at 
Morristown, N. J. Paper, 25c. ; cloth, 50c. 

What Must We Do To Be Saved? Analyzes the so-called gospeia 
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and devotes a chapter each to the Catholics, 
Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelical Alliance, and answers the 
question of the Christians as to what he proposes instead of Christianity, the religion 
sword and of flame. Paper, 25 cents. 




A VISIT TO CEYLON 



ERNEST HAECKEU 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA. AUTIIOIl OP "THE HISTORY OP CREATION," 
"history of the EVOLUTION OP MAN," ETC. 

WITH PORTRAIT, AND MAP OF INDIA AND CEYLON. 
One volume, post 8vo, 348 pages, extra vellum cloth, $1.00. 



Before venturing on this memorable voyage to India and Ceylon, whose results have 
delighted and entranced many readers in both heinisi)heres, our enthusiastic author, 
having conferred many zoological titles in honoi- of Mu; august divinity that controls and 
governs the solar orb, claimed in return special consideratiou and protection from the 
occult forces of that brilliant luminary, and hoping to be favored with pleasant and agree- 
able weather during the entire voyage, he made, with all the solemnity that becomes a 
scientist, the following propitiatory invocation to Helios, the benignant god of the Sun: 

" I beseech thee, adored Sun-god, that this, my zoological tribute, may find favor in 
thine eyes ! Guide me, safe and sound, to India, that I may labor in thy light, and return 
home under thy protection in the spring." — Haeckel's Visit to Ceylon, page 20. 

" These letters constitute one of the most charming books of travel ever published, quite 
worthy of being placed by the side of Darwin's ' Voyage 0/ the Beagle.' ''—Nation. 



w/ 



tu •>' f^r^^^iw^ ''^^T^^^^^ ••f^^?W%^' 





'%i 




-y^^jp-j:^ .7^ 



'^''" '^' 



W 



L* /1>^ 



^J 



^4^ 



1: ^Si-f, 



.m 



y 






■^\ 


















£^ 



"7" 



^U , ^ 











^^Siik^^ 









pv] 



^ 



,<.t"> 






